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Netflix is one of the world's leading entertainment services offering TV series, films, games and live programming across a wide variety of genres and languages. Members can play, pause and resume watching as much as they want, anytime, anywhere, and can change their plans at any time. Important Information and Where to Find It In connection with the proposed transaction between Netflix and WBD, WBD filed a definitive proxy statement on Schedule 14A (the "Proxy Statement") with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"). The Proxy Statement was first mailed to WBD stockholders on or around February 17, 2026. Each of Netflix and WBD may also file with or furnish to the SEC other relevant documents regarding the proposed transaction. This communication is not a substitute for the Proxy Statement or any other document that Netflix or WBD may file with the SEC or mail to WBD's stockholders in connection with the proposed transaction. INVESTORS AND SECURITY HOLDERS OF NETFLIX AND WBD ARE URGED TO READ THE PROXY STATEMENT, AS WELL AS ANY OTHER RELEVANT DOCUMENTS FILED WITH THE SEC IN CONNECTION WITH THE PROPOSED TRANSACTION OR INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE INTO THE PROXY STATEMENT (INCLUDING ANY AMENDMENTS OR SUPPLEMENTS THERETO), BECAUSE THEY WILL CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION REGARDING NETFLIX, WBD, THE PROPOSED TRANSACTION AND RELATED MATTERS.

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Netflix Inc (NFLX) — Q1 2019 Earnings Call Transcript

Apr 5, 20266 speakers6,350 words59 segments
SW
Spencer WangVP of IR and Corporate Development

Good afternoon and welcome to Netflix Q1 2019 Earnings Interview. I'm Spencer Wang, VP of IR and Corporate Development. Joining me today are CEO, Reed Hastings; CFO, Spencer Neumann; Chief Content Officer, Ted Sarandos; and Chief Product Officer, Greg Peters. Our interviewer this quarter is Eric Sheridan from UBS. As a reminder, we will be making forward-looking statements and actual results may vary. With that, let me turn it over to Eric for the first question.

ES
Eric SheridanAnalyst

Thank you, Spencer. Reed, I'd love to start with you. Now that we're three months into 2019, against your broader goals for what you're expecting for the business in 2019, what are the key messages you want to share with investors on how the first three months of the year went?

RH
Reed HastingsCEO

Well, we put in the earnings letter, our weekly net adds and it's just phenomenal how steady and smooth and up into the right that is to start off the year with over 9.5 million net additions. It's a phenomenal start. So steady progress, basically the same as many prior quarters, cranking away on amazing content, amazing service and steady growth around the world.

ES
Eric SheridanAnalyst

Maybe sticking with that theme on the subscriber front, we'd love to understand some of what you saw internationally in subscriber strength. There were some particular pieces of content that seemed to resonate globally on an individual and on a worldwide basis, so I'd love to ask both from a content perspective and a subscriber growth perspective, maybe to Ted and Greg, how are you thinking about the subscriber performance, especially internationally in Q1?

TS
Ted SarandosChief Content Officer

Well, the one thing that was good about in terms of the content connection is the things that worked best that we called on the letter are things that worked around the world, which was really fantastic. And then we had some great international breakouts where they really helped drive excitement in, by the way of example, Kingdom in Korea that did phenomenal and got watched and it's getting watched all over the world and throughout the region. So, yeah, we think we've been able to work on a very local basis and very global basis with the content this year, this quarter.

GP
Greg PetersChief Product Officer

And then from the product perspective, yeah, the basic model that we've seen consistently across pretty much all the markets that we operate in is, as we launch our service, we get a chance to learn from our members, they tell us what content we incrementally need to provide to them. We do a better job at that, how we modify the product experience, what we need to add from a payments perspective, from a partners perspective, and we're seeing that basically in all the markets that we operate in the world. And so, the longer we've been in that territory like Europe, it's a great example, we've got a lot of stuff dialed in and consumers are really loving us and that's leading to great accelerating growth.

ES
Eric SheridanAnalyst

Ted, maybe following up with you on local content that goes global, you've got a number of hits now that started as local language and went global, are you getting better at identifying what those pieces of content might be? What are your learnings as you're getting more of those types of successes in the model?

TS
Ted SarandosChief Content Officer

Well, we've kept one strict principle around it, which was that these shows have to be very locally relevant and to do that, you have to be pretty authentically local. So, what we're trying not to do is try to inauthentically make a global show because basically that doesn't work for anybody. So the more authentically local the show is, the better it travels, which we've seen with Kingdom, so fans of K-Drama around the world loved that show and it resonated incredibly well for us in Korea. Similarly, coming up, we have a new season of The Rain coming out this quarter, that is perfectly Swedish. We don't try to water it down or make it travel any better inorganically and it found that the best way to make global stories is to make them incredibly authentically local.

ES
Eric SheridanAnalyst

So, Greg, maybe coming back to you on the subscriber front, you had some information in the letter about the amount of traffic globally that you get from mobile, but we're continuing to see performance above what we thought in terms of download of Netflix app on phones globally. Can you talk a little bit about mobile as a stimulant for both traffic, subscriber growth, and how you might go after that on the product side over the medium and long term?

GP
Greg PetersChief Product Officer

Sure. I think the most important, the headline message there is actually, frankly, how much time we don't win on the mobile experience. Over 97.5% around the world, people are using other different entertainment services, other ways to enjoy their time on their mobile phone. But certainly what we are seeing is that mobile is an increasing way for us to attract new subscribers. It's a great place for folks to find out about Netflix, to sign up for the service, even if they're signing up for the service on mobile and then they're watching on other devices like the TV, which we see as a common paradigm. It works really well with our partners because whether it's handset partners, which we can work to sort of preload our application on or actually the mobile operators, which we can work on increasingly doing things like bundling Netflix as part of their standard offering, which you see us doing more and more around the world. It's a great way for us to make it super simple for our members to sign up for Netflix and enjoy that experience.

ES
Eric SheridanAnalyst

Maybe I'll start with Spencer, but would love a couple of different perspectives on this. It was a solid outperformance on margin in the quarter and the company talked about shifting some expenses into the later part of the year than maybe what you'd envisioned when you had guided Q1. Can you talk a little bit about how the cost structure evolved in the business in Q1, how that margin outperformance came about and maybe give a little bit more granularity on those shift in costs as you look through the better part of 2019?

SN
Spencer NeumannCFO

Yes, sure. I think that the takeaway is, we're overall very pleased with our continued margin progression. We guided at the beginning of the year to increase our margins by 300 basis points for the full year to 13%. We came in this quarter slightly ahead. Part of this, we're continuing to scale our business in terms of some combination of content and marketing spend, in particular, growing at a slower rate than revenue in this quarter, in particular I think you saw that on the marketing line where we had a lot of both growth and experimentation in marketing last year, which we talked about. We talked about the fact that we would level off that growth this year and you saw that come into play in Q1, which was a meaningful driver of that margin expansion. The timing in the quarter was not all that significant. There were some spend, particularly on timing of some creative spend and creative development spend on the marketing side in particular that shifted to later in the year as well as some content spend, but nothing material and we are well on track to that 13% full-year margin.

ES
Eric SheridanAnalyst

And just to follow up there, Spence, just to make sure we understand the message from the letter. Still second half versus first half should be the way investors think about the margin profile of the business this year against that broader 13% goal?

SN
Spencer NeumannCFO

Yes, Sheridan, I mean, you'll see some margin expansion as you can see in the guide for Q2 as well and then it will continue to expand in the back half of the year. As you know, there have been some price adjustments in the first half of the year that have been flowing through, so that also between that and just our member growth, we'll see the benefit of that margin expansion in the back half.

ES
Eric SheridanAnalyst

Maybe one more on the quarter in the letter itself, back to you, Ted, for the second quarter in a row, you gave a lot of information about consumption of the product in the quarter and some of the watch statistics. So I’d love both Ted and Reed maybe to weigh in on how you think about the type of watch and engagement statistics the company is getting when measured against the broader media landscape, what that means for the company longer term and whether we can expect to continue to hear that from the company going forward?

TS
Ted SarandosChief Content Officer

Yeah, definitely. We're trying to get to a place where we could be a lot more transparent, both with our producers and with our customers who are incredibly interested in helping them make better choices based on what's the world watching. So being able to share some of those numbers gives people a better sense of what things they might be interested in as well. And just real quickly, our show is from Denmark. But I wanted to point out that over the next several months, we're going to be rolling out more specific granular reporting first to our producers and then to our members and of course to the press over time and be more fully transparent about what people are watching on Netflix around the world.

ES
Eric SheridanAnalyst

And Reed, how do you think about the broader media landscape? What Netflix is trying to sell for and go after as a big opportunity over time when measured against the type of watch or engagement just statistics that company is putting up against their original content?

RH
Reed HastingsCEO

I think we're just starting to share that data, as Ted mentioned, and we will focus on that more each quarter. However, the main point for our members is that they consume a variety of content. Our members are watching pay-per-view, DVDs, linear TV, and playing Fortnite, among other things. The real measure is whether we can keep our members satisfied and grow our subscriber base as we successfully did in Q1.

ES
Eric SheridanAnalyst

So maybe sticking with you, Reed, you had a section in the letter about Disney, some of the competition that's coming into the broader landscape, maybe just help people frame how you see the competitive landscape? How do you see those types of products existing alongside or in competition with Netflix? And what your sort of view is of the landscape going forward?

RH
Reed HastingsCEO

Sure. Well, one part is, great competition makes you better. And so, we're thrilled to have Apple and Disney in, they are awesome companies and just to be in the same league as them is very exciting for us. And then on a practical basis, there's already so much competition. I mean, we mentioned we only win 2% of downloading on mobile, it's like 98% of the time people are not doing Netflix on US televisions, it's 90% are not watching Netflix, so there's a ton of competition out there and Disney and Apple add a little bit more, but frankly, I doubt it will be material, because again there's already so many competitors for entertainment time, which is great for consumers and it's exciting for us.

ES
Eric SheridanAnalyst

Greg, I'd love to take that answer and maybe go to you next of how you think about the product itself when you see potential new competitors coming to the field, what do you think some of the big differentiators you have on the product side, how do you think about pricing as a company longer term and maybe where you want to take the product medium to long term?

GP
Greg PetersChief Product Officer

Sure. I mean, again back to Reed's model, we sort of see this broad landscape of competition and our job is to think about every touchpoint that we have with the service and how can we make it incrementally more compelling, how do we connect our members with the amazing content that we're making in a way which is new and differentiating, you talked about international, that's a great opportunity where we think about localizing this content well, whether it's in subtitles or dubbing and then actually explaining to our members, connecting our members with those stories in a meaningful way, which then opens up them to watch TV shows or movies from around the world, from countries that they never would have conceived of doing before and I think that's a huge example of the opportunity we have to bring this global platform to bear and the right kind of product experience to create differentiation. And then with regard to pricing, I would say, again back to this sort of framework of broad competition where a bunch of different entertainment options are being provided all sorts of different models, some ad-based, subscription at different pricing points, we don't really think there is sort of an immediate equivalency or substitution. And so mostly it's about how do we create more value, how do we put the right content and present it in the right way that's compelling and differentiating for our members. If we think we do a great job at that, we'll just win more of those viewing hours, we'll deliver more value to our members and we'll be able to grow from a subscriber perspective like we did this quarter.

ES
Eric SheridanAnalyst

Turning to the second quarter, the company shared its vision for subscriber growth and discussed ARPU. It would be helpful if Spence and then Greg could elaborate on the framework for subscriber growth, including the impacts of price increases in various regions, as well as their effects on ARPU and churn, so that investors gain a clearer understanding.

SN
Spencer NeumannCFO

Yeah, sure. I can start and then others can chime in. You can see that we got it to 5 million of paid net adds in Q2, which is similar to where we were a year ago. There's definitely some seasonality to our business, which we see in Q2, you see that again this year, but I'd say in general, our paid net adds are very much in line with what we've been planning and targeting for the year. On a first half of the year basis, you see that's 7% year-over-year growth. The specific growth in Q2 is more concentrated internationally, that's just as we talked about last quarter, we're rolling through our price changes in the US. So that has some moderation on our net adds and the good news there is that our growth in our acquisition, it's consistent in terms of our ability to kind of grow our subscribers, there's just some temporary churn that enters the system in the midst of rolling out those price changes, but that’s why you see more of the net adds weighted to our international segments in Q2. But overall very healthy going according to plan and very strong growth for the first half of the year and putting us on track as we also mentioned in the letter for another year of record paid net add growth for the full year.

GP
Greg PetersChief Product Officer

And, Eric, just to add on to what Spence said, in the guidance, you will see that there is an acceleration in ASP growth as well as in revenue growth in Q2 relative to Q1 and that's a function of some of those price adjustments that we talked about earlier.

ES
Eric SheridanAnalyst

One maybe follow up, because it did come in, in advance in a number of instances, when you think about churn with the price increase, do you look to historical trends or do you look to sort of near-term trends, because this was an interesting price increase that it started rolling into effect in the middle of Q1 and it appears it'll be done in terms of going into effect towards the middle to back-end of Q2. What are the historical trends you've been looking to anchor yourself to or are you sort of looking at other recent price increases on markets like Canada and others to inform how to guide?

SN
Spencer NeumannCFO

You want me to take that or.

GP
Greg PetersChief Product Officer

I would just say, maybe, there's a bunch of historical performance and modeling that we use to keep an eye on these things, but generally, I would say things are going as expected and this is one of those relatively infrequent moments where as we invest more into service, more great content, we've got incredible movies coming like Irishman and 6 Underground, improving the product experience. We occasionally go back to our subscribers and ask them to contribute a little bit more, so that we can fund that next cycle of growth and everything that we're seeing right now is very consistent with that model.

SN
Spencer NeumannCFO

I would also like to mention that in the US, we have increased our entry-level pricing for the first time, leading to a more substantial overall price increase compared to our last adjustment. Despite this change, our churn levels remain consistent with those observed during our last pricing update in the US. Everything aligns with our strategy and aligns with our historical observations.

ES
Eric SheridanAnalyst

Given the success in our content efforts, Ted, could you share some insights on our robust content schedule for Q2 and the latter part of the year? Specifically, what are you looking forward to presenting to Netflix members? How does this align with our key investments in areas such as movies, local language content, and popular returning series?

TS
Ted SarandosChief Content Officer

In the third quarter, we will debut new episodes and seasons of some of our most beloved shows on Netflix, including Stranger Things, Money Heist, Orange Is the New Black, 13 Reasons Why, and Elite, which was a significant success for us from Spain. We're also launching a new season from Ryan Murphy of The Politician and a fresh series that we believe our audiences will enjoy. As we approach the fourth quarter, we'll see major film investments like The Irishman and 6 Underground, alongside a large new original series currently in production in Hungary called The Witcher, which is based on a hugely popular European game and book franchise that we expect will be a captivating global series. Additionally, we're advancing our kids and family content as well as our animated originals, featuring two major projects: Klaus, which will be part of our animated features in the fourth quarter, and Green Eggs and Ham, an ambitious 13-episode animated series produced by Ellen DeGeneres with feature-quality animation that has been in development for about four years. We're really excited to share these with our members in the fourth quarter.

ES
Eric SheridanAnalyst

Looking out to Q2 and the rest of the year, would love to ask a little bit about what you're seeing in India? I know you don't break out subscriber additions, but we'd love to understand some of the investments you made in content in India? How those investments in content are resonating in the marketplace? And then maybe Greg you can pick it up and talk a little bit about the product side and what you're seeing from an adoption standpoint in India as well?

TS
Ted SarandosChief Content Officer

Well, we've been – we were super encouraged out of the gate with Love Per Square Foot and Sacred Games, where not only do we get a lot of viewing in India but it just took an incredible position in the zeitgeist where people were talking about and writing about the excitement of a show of the quality of Sacred Games. And then recently we followed it up again with Delhi Crime that people are also really loving in India and is getting watched outside of India as well. And most importantly, the steady drumbeat and then add to that another dozen original films coming in India that we're seeing the investment in local language content in India payback in the form of excitement and member growth and hours growth that's encouraging us to keep going.

GP
Greg PetersChief Product Officer

And as we sort of have that ongoing content investment and we're really providing stories that Indian consumers really love, it's an opportunity for us to look at how we broaden the accessibility of the service then to more and more Indian consumers. And so part of that is making sure that we have the right payments models in place and innovating and testing about our new models to make the Indian consumer feel like they have existing ways of paying that are natural to them that they can use to pay for Netflix. It's also much in partnership stuff. We launched a big partnership with Airtel, which is working for us quite well, so we can use different go-to-market mechanisms already exist that any consumers aren't familiar with to make it easy for them to just sign up for the service and try it out. And frankly, we're also trying to do a bunch of experimentation with just our plan structure and thinking about pricing and plans and what do we do to test different models that allow us to bring a lower price plan with the right feature set at the right price in a way that any consumer and frankly consumers around the world can understand so we can broaden accessibility to service now. So all of that's an ongoing effort that we think is a great match for the broadening of the Indian content catalog that we have.

ES
Eric SheridanAnalyst

Well, maybe if I could just follow up on one with that, Greg, it does seem like a mobile-only, maybe lower-priced product could open up a lot of demand in the developing world, how do you think about some of the opportunities and the challenges when you think about a mobile-only offering or something at a lower price point and trying to get the mix of content versus subscriber economics right?

GP
Greg PetersChief Product Officer

Yeah. I think that's a great example of something that we're trying out, we're not positive that's the right model, but we're quite certain that we should do something to find a price tier that's lower than the existing lowest price tier to broaden that accessibility. We think that it'll be important to adding members in India. We'll see what the right mix of features is, because there is a bit of a magic to try and get the right set of features at the right price point in a way that the consumer can relate to, right, it has to be sort of natural and intuitive to the consumer that this is what they're getting. So we've got more work to go do there, but it's something we're highly focused on and anticipate we'll make more progress in the future.

ES
Eric SheridanAnalyst

Maybe, turning next to M&A and the broader strategy for the company, Reed, I'd love to start with you. As you look at the strategy you've laid out for the company over the medium to long term, how do you think about some of the aspects of the strategy that might be better to go out and acquire versus build yourself against the big long-term opportunity? And maybe I'll follow up with one for Spence.

RH
Reed HastingsCEO

I don't think investors have too much to worry about there. We've been going for 20 years, we've done one or two micro acquisitions but no big appetite, no big need. We got clear sailing ahead. If we can produce the world's best content, we can deliver it with the best user interface, then we can grow for many, many years ahead. So that's what we're focused on. It's a lot of tough execution, it's keeping ourselves all focused on that and then we're letting other companies do many different strategies, but we know what ours is and we're having a lot of fun just executing on it.

ES
Eric SheridanAnalyst

Okay. Spence, I wanted to jump off the M&A question and ask more about capital allocation. You're now more settled in your role than I think it was seven or eight days when we did this interview three months ago, so I'm going to grill you a little bit harder on what you're seeing in your role? What you see as some of the big opportunities for you to tackle in the role as CFO here at the company and how that fits into the broader capital allocation pecking order for the company is trying to accomplish?

SN
Spencer NeumannCFO

I believe it closely aligns with what Reed mentioned regarding the remarkable growth potential of our business. If we stay focused and execute effectively, we are in a vast market that continues to transition from linear formats to on-demand and streaming services, presenting significant global market opportunities that we aim to capitalize on. This relates directly to our focus on capital allocation, particularly in becoming increasingly strategic in how we deploy our content budgets and programming partnerships with Ted and the team, while also investing in the product and customer experience alongside Greg and his team. Our primary focus remains on scaling our company, as we aspire to become a significantly larger and more profitable self-funding organization over time. As noted in our letter, we are dedicated to substantially enhancing our cash flow starting in 2020 and continuing each year beyond that. We will maintain our capital structure similarly to how it is currently funded to support this trajectory, a topic we have addressed in the past. Ultimately, it’s about aiding the team in staying focused, disciplined, and fostering the ability to increase profitability and improve our cash flow as we grow.

ES
Eric SheridanAnalyst

Maybe one more for you following up there, Spence, came in to me in a couple of different ways from a lot of debt investors asking about the expansion of the credit facility, the prior comment about free cash flow improving in '20 over '19, how should investors think about the self-funding component versus the need to continue to tap the debt capital markets as you think of funding the business initiatives inside the company?

SN
Spencer NeumannCFO

There hasn't been any significant change in our philosophy or strategy. We recently expanded our revolver because the business has become larger. It was an opportunity to maintain the same cost of capital, and while we haven't used it and don't plan to, we felt it was wise to take advantage of it. We'll still focus on funding through the high-yield market. We have a strong cushion between our total equity capitalization and our debt-to-capital ratio, along with considerable interest in the debt funding markets, which provides us with the most efficient cost of capital. As the new CFO, I've been concentrating on our liquidity, payment timing, and cash flow needs, and I feel confident in this approach to our capital structure. However, relying on debt markets to meet our cash flow needs won't last forever, as we're moving towards a self-funding path that we started in 2020.

RH
Reed HastingsCEO

So I think the message, Eric, to debt investors is, you better debt in soon, because there's not going to be that much more to go.

ES
Eric SheridanAnalyst

Truly noted. Maybe sticking with content, but I'd love to start with Reed and then go to Ted. Probably, the most important question I get a lot from investors is thinking through the narrative of some of the licensed content that's been popular on the platform coming off over the next couple of years due to some of the industry players making their own decisions and how you think about aligning your own investments around your own original content to fill in any gaps that happen from a consumption standpoint. Maybe just starting with you Reed, how do you think about the content landscape and how it feeds into the competitive landscape? And, Ted, I would love to understand from you how that feeds into the planning for content, not only in '19, but over maybe the short or medium term over the next couple of years?

RH
Reed HastingsCEO

Well, we don't think about it as filling in, that's very minimalist. We think about it as can we change the world with great stories and we're so thrilled to be able to have the money to do that and to invest forward. And I think you'll see that the series and the movies and the reality that we're doing, the nature programming, I mean, you look at Our Planet, that's not filling in for anything else, that's setting a bold new vision of what programming can be. And so, we're charging forward. Again, we've expected this decline of second window content, been ready for it, anticipating it, in fact, we're eager to be able to have more and more of our money, be able to do spectacular new titles. So let me pass it over to you, Ted.

TS
Ted SarandosChief Content Officer

Yes, I completely agree. It's important to remember that seven years ago, we anticipated that studios and networks would want to retain their second windows. Therefore, we needed to excel at producing our own programming and collaborating with creators to achieve that. That has been our goal. Over the years, our investment and the hours viewed for our original and branded content on Netflix have consistently increased. We're focused on all types of beloved content, including scripted series, unscripted series, feature films, documentaries, standup comedy, and quality children's programming. As Reed mentioned, this isn't simply about substituting one type of content for another. For instance, we have "You vs. Wild," an interactive show for families that has gained significant traction, with around 25 million viewers engaging with it in the first 28 days on Netflix, marking a tremendous success. We're advancing storytelling with projects like "The Irishman," both in terms of content availability and the technical execution of great stories, which is our primary focus. There's considerable attention on licensed content and viewer engagement. Historically, television has had numerous programming hours that viewers consume interchangeably, but the shows that our members value most are represented among our top 10 most-watched on Netflix, which are all original brands. In fact, only four shows crack the top 25 in terms of at least one season. Our business increasingly revolves around creating and sharing exclusive, high-quality stories globally, while providing opportunities for new storytellers everywhere.

SW
Spencer WangVP of IR and Corporate Development

Eric, I would just add, if you look at the multi-year sort of track record of the company, we've gone through different periods of the content library changing where there were Epics or stores in general we've been able to sort of adjust the content library and really grow right through that.

TS
Ted SarandosChief Content Officer

It's difficult to believe that it was 2017 when Fox decided to remove all of their second window content from Netflix to concentrate on their own initiatives. Since that time, we have been performing well, and we're quite satisfied with our progress.

SW
Spencer WangVP of IR and Corporate Development

And then before that, there was Epics coming off in discovery and we just continued to grow throughout that by using the money to invest like Our Planet, we commissioned four years ago. So there's a lot of planning that goes into this and that's what makes it exciting.

ES
Eric SheridanAnalyst

Well, along those lines, I thought there was a really interesting piece in the shareholder letter that looked at a product that would show users the top 10 shows that were trending. It seems like it's a beta test in the UK. Greg, would love to understand what the goal of that beta test is, what it might do for user engagement, how you think about that as a sort of natural evolution of the product to almost create crowdsourced content engagement?

GP
Greg PetersChief Product Officer

Yeah. It's an example of one of 100 tests that we'll do in a given quarter to try and actually make the product experience better, but the core idea behind this is there's a bunch of our members who really enjoy watching the most popular shows, because they enjoy watching the show and then engaging in the public conversation around the show and all the memes that are shared around. And so the idea here is, let's look at job at using the product and other public communication channels to basically let our members know what are those most popular shows so they can watch and then participate in that public conversation. And so, we're quite bullish on that and we'll see how it does.

TS
Ted SarandosChief Content Officer

And I would only add that it's a popularity as a data point that people can use to choose, not the most important one and not the only one, but we don't want to suppress it if it's helpful to our members.

GP
Greg PetersChief Product Officer

That's exactly right. And I think, to Ted's point basically, our members have a broad set of things that they're evaluating, what they want to watch and our job is to figure out, for any given member, what's the information that they're going to find most relevant to make that decision. For some members, that'll be popular.

ES
Eric SheridanAnalyst

Greg, sticking with you, another point that was raised again in the letter was around distribution deals. What they're doing for the business is both growing the brand, growing awareness of the service driving subscriber growth, can you give us a little granularity on sort of what you see from these partnerships? What it means for the company longer term? And what the landscape even could look like to do additional partnerships over time?

GP
Greg PetersChief Product Officer

We have been working for over a decade to enhance how we collaborate with partners and leverage other companies to connect with our members, starting with making our application available on different devices. This has provided another straightforward way for users to find and enjoy Netflix. Over time, we've also introduced options like billing through mobile operators or pay TV charges, making it easier for members to sign up. Recently, we've seen success with bundle deals, where Netflix is included as part of a pay TV or mobile package. This approach allows potential subscribers to access our service easily, whether via their set-top box or mobile phone, and helps us reach a subscriber base that might be slower to sign up directly. Although these bundled deals are performing well and we aim to expand them, it’s important to emphasize that they still represent a small fraction of our total sign-ups each quarter compared to those who join us directly. We expect to see more of these partnerships as they serve as a valuable supplemental channel for driving our growth.

TS
Ted SarandosChief Content Officer

Greg, maybe turning to you on the movies front. Obviously, you continue to evolve the strategy on distribution of movies when you think about some of the things having to go into theaters or thinking about different windows yourself for new movie content, how has that strategy evolved? What sort of feedback are you getting from the content creation community? What are you seeing from users and how they want to consume the content? And how might that sort of continue to evolve the movies' strategy over the medium to long term? I believe these situations are unique to each case. Generally, we have always supported consumer choice. Ideally, I would like for films available on Netflix to also be shown in 2,000 theaters simultaneously. However, we don't have control over the programming in those theaters. What I mean is that if people wish to enjoy a nice outing and watch a good film that we have produced, but they can't find it on a screen, they simply won’t go out. Therefore, our aim should be to provide consumers with as many options as possible, but our control extends only to what’s on Netflix. Typically, we are releasing films in theaters and on Netflix at the same time. By synchronizing their availability, we get to promote the films and generate publicity. While we do release a few films in select theaters a few weeks beforehand, our goal remains to have them accessible in theaters and on Netflix simultaneously, although our control is limited to Netflix. Ultimately, we need to prioritize creating excellent movies. Anyone involved in showing and watching these films will take notice of our efforts. Our focus is on producing undeniably great movies alongside remarkable filmmakers.

SW
Spencer WangVP of IR and Corporate Development

Eric, we have time for one more question, please.

ES
Eric SheridanAnalyst

Sure. So, Reed, I'd love to end with you with a little bit of a lighthearted question, but also one that I think allows you to frame a little bit about where you've come from and where you've gone. I noticed in the press at the last week, our competitor said that Netflix may or may not have a brand, it's what they implied. And I figure you probably disagree with the statement that Netflix doesn't have a brand. So I would love to understand your vision of sort of where the Netflix brand has come over the last half decade as you've evolved the company and how do you think about repositioning and evolving the brand to stay at the front of the curve of where the industry's going over the next half decade?

RH
Reed HastingsCEO

We're a mix of great innovator that people love us for trying new things. That's both in terms of on-demand and it's creatively with a different series that we're doing and being really great comfort food where you just want to curl up and enjoy and you know Netflix is going to be great. So, it's that combination of comfort and innovation that's so powerful for us. And when I think of the quarter, just to wrap up, the one little time I was not watching Netflix on Sunday, I was watching Tiger Woods and the PGA, and like probably half of America. And when I think of those beautiful shots right down the middle of the fairway, I think about the 6,000 employees at Netflix hitting that perfect clean shot and that's what the quarter was. So congratulations to everyone on a fantastic Q1 and looking forward to getting the green jacket for the year for this team.