Content spend of Netflix 2012-2024

The content spending of Netflix worldwide amounted to around 16.7 billion U.S. dollars in 2022. This marks the second decline to date compared to the previous year, when the video-on-demand service spent over 17 billion U.S. dollars on content. According to estimates, Netflix's expenditures on content will likely stabilize at roughly 17 billion U.S. dollars during the period 2022 to 2024.

Netflix leads SVOD original content spending

A forecast suggests that Netflix could spend around seven billion U.S. dollars on its own originals in 2023, ranking fifth among global media companies after Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount, and Comcast. However, with a share of over 25 percent, the streaming giant accounts for the highest amount of SVOD original content spending worldwide.

Slowdown in content investments

Aside from the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when Netflix’s content spending fell, its investments in content have steadily increased every year. Production costs of originals, such as “Stranger Things” and “The Crown,” are reaching ever new heights. But the company is expected to plateau its content budget for the next few years, and it is not the only streaming provider that needs to keep their costs low. Following a net loss of over one billion U.S. dollars in its direct-to-consumer segment in Q1 2023, Disney announced in February 2023 that it would be slashing five billion U.S. dollars in costs, including both content and non-content cuts, in order to make its streaming business profitable.