Netflix is thriving in Canada, reports suggest
Netflix Inc.’s official Canadian subscriber numbers may be top secret, but new estimates suggest the online streaming service is booming north of the border with more than six million customers.
Two independent reports released Tuesday by Toronto-based Solutions Research Group and Victoria-based Convergence Research Group estimate a growing Canadian user base for the Los Gatos, Calif., company.
“Post Christmas in early 2018, we’ve seen a record jump in Netflix use,” SRG stated in its research note on digital life based on a February online survey of 1,000 Canadians older than 12.
More than half of Canadian households with an internet subscription (57 per cent or 6.7 million) said they streamed Netflix in the past month, up from 48 per cent in October 2017. SRG estimated its total subscriber count at 6.1 million in Canada, excluding multiple households that use the same account.
Convergence Research Group estimates an even higher number of Canadian Netflix subscribers at 6.7 million, up from 6.4 million at the end of 2017, founder Brahm Eiley said in an email.
The reports came a day after Netflix said it had 7.4 million new subscribers in the first quarter — 5.46 million based outside the U.S. That’s a 50-per-cent increase from last year despite price increases that helped boost streaming revenue 43 per cent to US$3.6 billion.
Television subscribers are slowly dwindling in Canada, according to research reports, financial statements and the federal broadcast regulator. The CRTC said 76.2 per cent of households subscribed to TV packages as of Aug. 31, 2016, down from 82.8 per cent in 2012. Convergence estimates that percentage dropped to 71.9 per cent by the end of 2017.