[imagesource: Liam Daniel / Netflix]

It’s estimated that there are around 7,8 billion people walking the Earth.

Using that as a guideline, the latest numbers released by Netflix mean that roughly one out of every 38 people on the planet is a Netflix subscriber.

There is also a high degree of password sharing on the same account, so maybe it’s more like one in 20.

Whatever the case, Netflix has just ticked off a major milestone, with the fourth-quarter (Q4) numbers showing a total of 203,6 million subscribers.

Reporting below via The Verge:

Netflix added a total of 8.5 million paid net subscribers in Q4, bringing in a record breaking 37 million paid memberships in 2020. Netflix “achieved $25 billion in annual revenue,” according to the earnings report.

Still, Netflix is warning that “we expect paid net adds of 6 million” in Q1 2021 compared to last year’s “15.8 million, which included the impact from the initial COVID-19 lockdowns.”

Most importantly, however, Netflix executives are telling shareholders that “we no longer have a need to raise external financing for our day-to-day operations.”

Simply put, Netflix no longer needs to borrow huge amounts of cash, which should help it weather what many predicted would be a rough 2021.

Subscriber numbers in Q4 were helped by the huge popularity of shows like The Queen’s Gambit and Emily in Paris. One of those is good, and the other is, to put it mildly, not.

More than 62 million households watched The Queen’s Gambit within the first four weeks of its release, making it the second most watched limited series on Netflix.

The only show that beat it was Tiger King. Toward the end of the quarter, Netflix also saw another big hit with Shonda Rhimes’ Bridgerton, which Netflix projected would amass more than 63 million household views within its first four weeks.

The runaway success of Bridgerton is reasonably surprising, and 63 million views would make it Netflix’s fifth most-watched series ever.

A quick look at the trailer, if you’re not yet a viewer:

Not for me, but you go on and enjoy yourself.

Netflix’s market dominance is made clear by the numbers of some of its biggest rivals, with Disney Plus having 86,8 million subscribers (and rising quickly, to be fair), and Disney’s Hulu service sitting at around 38,8 million subscribers.

The company also predicted that Lupin, a French-language heist series, will be watched by more than 70 million accounts within its first four weeks of release.

That will put it within touching distance of Netflix’s most-watched original series ever, The Witcher, which clocked 76 million views.

Sure, here’s the trailer:

[source:verge]