Netflix Reaches More Than 10 Million Subscribers

Netflix said today its online movie rental service has reached over 10 million subscribers, reflecting its widespread and growing popularity among movie fans.

The company says it has added more than 600,000 net subscribers since January 1. It surpassed nine million subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2008 and ended the year with 9.4 million subscribers.

Netflix said its recent increase in subscribers is due to growing consumer recognition of convenience offered by the service along with more ways to watch movies and TV episodes on PCs, Intel-based Macs and TVs.

Reed Hastings

Devices with Netflix access now include the Roku digital video player, Blu-ray disc players from LG, Samsung, Xbox 360 and newer models of TiVo DVRs.

Last week Netflix announced that 1 million Xbox 360 users had activated its movie streaming service since it formed a partnership with Microsoft last November.

"Ten million subscribers is a symbolic but meaningful achievement for our company," said Reed Hastings, Netflix co-founder and CEO.

"From a subscriber standpoint, Netflix is singularly focused on making movie enjoyment easy, and we’ll strive to deliver on that promise in added and improved ways in the years to come."

In announcing it had surpassed 10 million subscribers, Netflix repeated the guidance it provided on January 26, including the guidance for ending the first quarter with 10.1 million to 10.3 million subscribers and a full-year ending of 10.6 to 11.3 million subscribers.