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Netflix soars past 200M subscribers as lockdowns continue

Netflix continues to rise in popularity as people continue to self-isolate.

Donovan Erskine

January 20, 2021 1:45 PM

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It’s mind-boggling to think that we’re coming up on the one-year anniversary of COVID-19 becoming a worldwide crisis. The issues caused by the pandemic has led to shake ups across so many facets of everyday life. This includes the entertainment industry, as theaters shut down and at-home streaming became king. Netflix was already a monolith in this industry, and has only seen more success in light of lockdowns and stay-at-home orders. It’s been announced that Netflix has surpassed 200 million subscribers.

As reported by the USA Today, Netflix has released its official earnings for the fourth quarter. It was during this call that the company shared it had passed the 200M subscribers milestone. “We’re enormously grateful that in these uniquely challenging times we’ve been able to provide our members around the world with a source of escape, connection and joy while continuing to build our business,” the company said in its letter to shareholders.

The report also states that Netflix added 8.5 million subs between October and December of 2020. This doesn’t come as too big of a shocker, because we’ve seen the streaming giant continue to beef up its original programming efforts more and more in recent years. It just so happened that the closing down of most theaters made for the perfect storm in Netflix’s pursuit to seize the world of film and television. It’s quite likely that similar services, such as Hulu and Amazon Prime Video, have also seen boosts in earning during the pandemic.

With the pandemic soon to cross the anniversary mark, and with COVID-19 numbers still getting worse, it’s likely that Netflix and similar streaming services will continue to see spikes in subscriptions and viewership in 2021. For more on the streaming giant, be sure to visit the Netflix topic page on Shacknews.

Donovan Erskine

News Editor

Donovan is a young journalist from Maryland, who likes to game. His oldest gaming memory is playing Pajama Sam on his mom's desktop during weekends. Pokémon Emerald, Halo 2, and the original Star Wars Battlefront 2 were some of the most influential titles in awakening his love for video games. After interning for Shacknews throughout college, Donovan graduated from Bowie State University in 2020 with a major in broadcast journalism and joined the team full-time. He is a huge Scream nerd and film fanatic that will talk with you about movies and games all day. You can follow him on twitter @Donimals_