According to AFP, Netflix started the year with surprising results, with 232.5 million subscribers and revenue of $8.16 billion in the first quarter.

The streaming veteran, which has been diversifying its revenue streams, also announced Tuesday that it will shut down its 25-year-old DVD-by-mail rental service by the end of the year.

“Our goal has always been to provide the best service to our members, but this has become very difficult with the decline of this business,” the company said in a statement.

Netflix reported net income of $1.3 billion in the first quarter, down 18% from a year earlier, in line with analyst expectations.

“These rather tepid results do not prove that the company will be able to recover its business through advertising and the distribution of paid passwords,” responded Paul Verna, an analyst at Insider Intelligence.

After exploding during the pandemic for digital platforms, Netflix had a very difficult 2022, which pushed the company’s executives to focus more on diversifying revenue sources than on increasing the number of users.

In November, a new cheaper subscription with advertising was launched.

The platform also wants to make users pay to add profiles to their accounts instead of sharing their passwords for free.

This new method is being implemented but has been delayed.

“This means that the expected growth in the number of users and revenues will occur in the third quarter, not the second,” the company said. (photo: Bekir Ugur / Dreamstime)