Netflix is Raising Prices… Again

💻 The streaming giant has raised its monthly subscription price by $1 to $2 per month in the US and Canada, Reuters first reported on Friday. This is the company's sixth wide-scale price increase since 2014, and its first since late 2020.

• The US and Canada is Netflix's largest region with 74 million streaming customers as of September 2021. It accounted for nearly 44% of the company's revenue in Q3 2021, or about $3.3 billion.
• Since Netflix already has a wealth of subscribers across North America, adding more is a challenge – so price hikes are an obvious way to make more money (which is why it's part of the company's long-term strategy).
• At the same time, Netflix is competing with several other streaming services like Disney+, HBO Max, Hulu, Apple TV+, etc., for attention and has been spending big on content to keep up.
• The company previously said it would spend $17 billion on programming in 2021. It hasn't disclosed spending for 2022.

+Worth noting: This price change hasn't impacted existing subscribers yet, only new ones. If you already have an account, the hikes will be rolled out "gradually" and you'll receive an email 30 days before the new price goes into effect.

+Go deeper: The streaming wars keep getting more interesting.