NFLX — filing
0001065280-26-000034 · 313,452 characters of text, split into 7 sections
Filed with the SEC · open the original
Item 1. Business
What to look forWhat the company actually sells, to whom, and how it says it makes money. Read this before any number.
ABOUT US
Netflix, Inc. ("Netflix", the "Company", "registrant", "we", or "us") is one of the world's leading entertainment services offering TV series, films, games and live programming across a wide variety of genres and languages. Members can play, pause and resume watching as much as they want, anytime, anywhere, and can change their plans at any time.
Our core strategy is to grow our business globally within the parameters of our operating margin target. We strive to continuously improve our members' experience by offering compelling content that delights them and attracts new members. We aim to offer a range of pricing plans, including our ad-supported subscription plan, to meet a variety of consumer needs. We seek to drive conversation around our content to further enhance member joy, and we are continuously enhancing our user interface to help our members more easily choose content that they will find enjoyable.
BUSINESS SEGMENTS
We operate as one operating segment. Our revenues are primarily derived from monthly membership fees for services related to streaming content to our members. See Note 13, Segment and Geographic Information , in the accompanying notes to our consolidated financial statements for further detail.
COMPETITION
The market for entertainment video is intensely competitive and subject to rapid change. We compete with a broad set of activities for consumers' leisure time, including other entertainment video providers, such as linear television, streaming entertainment providers (including those that provide pirated content), video gaming providers, open content platform providers, which provide access to user-generated and professionally produced content, as well as more broadly against other sources of entertainment, such as social media, that our members could choose in their moments of free time. We also compete against entertainment video providers and content producers in obtaining content for our service, both for licensed content and for original content projects.
While consumers may maintain simultaneous relationships with multiple entertainment sources, we strive for consumers to choose us in their moments of free time. We have often referred to this choice as our objective of "winning moments of truth." In attempting to win these moments of truth with our members, we seek to continually improve our service, including both our technology and our content offerings.
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INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
We regard our trademarks, service marks, copyrights, patents, domain names, trade dress, trade secrets, proprietary technologies and similar intellectual property as important to our success. We use a combination of patent, trademark, copyright and trade secret laws and confidentiality agreements to protect our proprietary intellectual property. Our intellectual property rights extend to our technology, business processes, the content we produce and distribute through our service, and the consumer products and experiences based thereon. We use the intellectual property of third parties in creating some of our content, merchandising our products and marketing our service. Our ability to provide our members with content they can watch depends on studios, content providers and other rights holders licensing rights, including distribution rights, to such content and certain related elements thereof, such as the public performance of music contained within the content we distribute. The license periods and the terms and conditions of such licenses vary. Our ability to protect and enforce our intellectual property rights is subject to certain risks and from time to time we encounter disputes over rights and obligations concerning intellectual property. We cannot provide assurance that we will prevail in any intellectual property disputes.
Excerpt. This section runs to 9,226 characters — read the whole filing at the SEC.
Item 1A. Risk Factors
What to look forWhat management is required to admit could go wrong. Written by lawyers, but the ordering and any newly added risk are informative.
If any of the following risks actually occur, our business, financial condition and results of operations could be harmed. In that case, the trading price of our common stock could decline, and you could lose all or part of your investment.
Risks Related to Our Business
If our efforts to attract and retain members are not successful, our business will be adversely affected.
We must continually add new members both to replace canceled memberships and to grow our business beyond our current membership base. Our ability to continue to attract and retain members will depend in part on our ability to consistently provide our members in countries around the globe with compelling content choices that keep our members engaged with our service, effectively drive conversation around our content and service, as well as provide a quality experience for choosing and enjoying TV series, films and games. Our penetration and growth rates have fluctuated and vary across the jurisdictions where we provide our service. In countries where we have been operating for many years or where we are highly penetrated, our membership growth is slower than in newer or less penetrated countries. Furthermore, the relative service levels, content offerings, pricing and related features of competitors to our service may adversely impact our ability to attract and retain members. Competitors include other entertainment video providers, such as linear television, streaming entertainment providers (including those that provide pirated content), video gaming providers, open content platform providers, which provide access to user-generated and professionally produced content, as well as more broadly against other sources of entertainment, such as social media, that our members could choose in their moments of free time.
Members cancel our service for many reasons, including a perception that they do not use the service sufficiently, that they need to cut household expenses, dissatisfaction with content, including any advertisements that may appear on our service, a preference for competitive services and customer service issues that they believe are not satisfactorily resolved. Adverse macroeconomic conditions, including as a result of inflation, may also adversely impact our ability to attract and retain members. If we do not grow as expected, given, in particular, that our content costs are largely fixed in nature, we may not be able to adjust our expenditures or increase our revenues, including by adjusting membership pricing, commensurate with the lowered growth rate such that our margins, liquidity and results of operations may be adversely impacted. If we are unable to successfully compete with current and new competitors in providing compelling content, retaining our existing members and attracting new members, our business will be adversely affected.
Excerpt. This section runs to 81,174 characters — read the whole filing at the SEC.
Item 3. Legal Proceedings
What to look forLitigation large enough to matter. Often a cross-reference to the notes rather than a disclosure in itself.
Information with respect to this item may be found in Note 9 Commitments and Contingencies in the accompanying notes to our consolidated financial statements included in Part II, Item 8, "Financial Statements and Supplementary Data" of this Annual Report on Form 10-K, under the caption "Legal Proceedings" which information is incorporated herein by reference.
Item 4. Mine Safety Disclosures
Not applicable.
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PART II
Item 5. Market for Registrant's Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities
What to look forShare count, buybacks and dividends — what the company did with capital that could have been yours.
Market Information
Our common stock is traded on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol "NFLX".
Stock Split
On November 14, 2025, the Company completed a ten-for-one forward stock split of the Company's issued common stock (the "Stock Split"). Each shareholder as of the record date of November 10, 2025 received nine additional shares of common stock for every share held. References made to share or per share amounts in the accompanying consolidated financial statements and applicable disclosures have been retroactively adjusted to reflect the Stock Split. See Note 10 Stockholders' Equity for additional information.
Holders
As of December 31, 2025, there were approximately 3,103 stockholders of record of our common stock, although there is a significantly larger number of beneficial owners of our common stock.
Dividend Policy
We have never declared or paid any cash dividends on our capital stock, and we do not currently anticipate paying any cash dividends in the foreseeable future.
Company Purchases of Equity Securities
Stock repurchases during the three months ended December 31, 2025 were as follows:
Period Total Number of Shares Purchased (1)
Average Price Paid per Share (2)
Total Number of Shares Purchased as Part of Publicly Announced Programs (1)
Approximate Dollar Value of Shares that May Yet Be Purchased Under the Program (1)
(in thousands)
October 1 - 31, 2025
5,583,110 $ 117.27 5,583,110 $ 9,471,608
November 1 - 30, 2025
9,304,465 $ 108.53 9,304,465 $ 8,461,794
December 1 - 31, 2025
3,994,670 $ 103.89 3,994,670 $ 8,046,784
Total
18,882,245 18,882,245
(1) In September 2023, the Company's Board of Directors authorized the repurchase of up to $10 billion of its common stock, with no expiration date, and in December 2024, the Board of Directors increased the share repurchase authorization by an additional $15 billion, also with no expiration date. For further information regarding stock repurchase activity, see Note 10 Stockholders' Equity to the consolidated financial statements in this Annual Report.
(2) Average price paid per share includes costs associated with the repurchases but excludes the 1% excise tax on stock repurchases imposed by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.
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Stock Performance Graph
Notwithstanding any statement to the contrary in any of our previous or future filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the following information relating to the price performance of our common stock shall not be deemed "filed" with the Commission or "soliciting material" under the Exchange Act and shall not be incorporated by reference into any such filings.
Excerpt. This section runs to 3,794 characters — read the whole filing at the SEC.
Item 7. Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations
What to look forThe company explaining its own results. Compare what it emphasises against what the statements show.
This section of this Form 10-K generally discusses 2025 and 2024 items and year-to-year comparisons between 2025 and 2024. Discussions of 2023 items and year-to-year comparisons between 2024 and 2023 that are not included in this Form 10-K can be found in "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations" in Part II, Item 7 of the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2024.
Results of Operations
The following represents our consolidated performance highlights (1) :
Year Ended December 31, Change
2025 2024 2023 2025 vs. 2024
(in thousands, except percentages)
Financial Results:
Streaming revenues $ 45,183,036 $ 39,000,966 $ 33,640,458 $ 6,182,070 16 %
DVD revenues (2)
$ - $ - $ 82,839 $ - - %
Total revenues $ 45,183,036 $ 39,000,966 $ 33,723,297 $ 6,182,070 16 %
Constant currency change in revenues (3)
17 %
Operating income $ 13,326,603 $ 10,417,614 $ 6,954,003 $ 2,908,989 28 %
Operating margin 29.5 % 26.7 % 20.6 % 2.8 %
Net income $ 10,981,201 $ 8,711,631 $ 5,407,990 $ 2,269,570 26 %
(1) During the year ended December 31, 2025, we discontinued the reporting of membership numbers, including average paying memberships and average monthly revenue per paying membership, focusing instead on revenue and operating margin as the primary financial metrics that we believe best represent our business performance.
(2) We discontinued our DVD-by-mail service in the year ended December 31, 2023. The discontinuance of our DVD business had an immaterial impact on our operations and financial results.
(3) See the " Non-GAAP Constant Currency Information" section below for additional details on our use of constant currency revenue.
Operating margin for the year ended December 31, 2025 increased by approximately three percentage points as compared to the prior comparative period, primarily driven by the growth in revenues outpacing the growth in cost of revenues, sales and marketing, and general and administrative expenses.
Net income for the year ended December 31, 2025 increased $2,270 million as compared to the prior comparative period, primarily due to a $2,909 million increase in operating income, driven by a $6,182 million increase in revenues and partially offset by a $2,237 million increase in cost of revenues primarily due to the increase in content amortization and other cost of revenues. The impact of higher operating income was partially offset by a $487 million increase in the provision for income taxes.
Revenues
We primarily derive revenues from monthly membership fees for services related to streaming content to our members. We offer a variety of streaming membership plans, the price of which varies by country and the features of the plan. As of December 31, 2025, pricing on our paid plans ranged from the U.S. dollar equivalent of $1 to $37 per month, and pricing on our extra member sub accounts ranged from the U.S. dollar equivalent of $2 to $9 per month. We expect that from time to time the prices of our membership plans in each country may change and we may test other plan and price variations.
Excerpt. This section runs to 37,900 characters — read the whole filing at the SEC.
Item 7A. Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk
What to look forExposure to rates, currencies and prices, stated in the company's own terms.
We are exposed to market risks related to interest rate changes, which affect the market values of our investments and debt, as well as foreign currency fluctuations.
Interest Rate Risk
At December 31, 2025, our cash equivalents were generally invested in money market funds and time deposits. Interest paid on such funds fluctuates with the prevailing interest rate.
As of December 31, 2025, we had $14.5 billion of debt, consisting of fixed rate unsecured debt in twelve tranches due between 2026 and 2054. Refer to Note 7 Debt to the consolidated financial statements for details about all issuances. The fair value of our debt will fluctuate with movements of interest rates, increasing in periods of declining rates of interest and declining in periods of increasing rates of interest. The fair value of our debt will also fluctuate based on changes in foreign currency rates, as discussed below.
Foreign Currency Risk
We operate our business globally and transact in multiple currencies. Currencies denominated in other than the U.S. dollar accounted for 56% of revenue and 31% of operating expenses for the year ended December 31, 2025. We therefore have foreign currency risk related to these currencies, which are primarily the Euro, British pound, Brazilian real, Mexican peso, Canadian dollar, and Argentine peso.
Accordingly, volatility in exchange rates, and in particular a weakening of foreign currencies relative to the U.S. dollar, may negatively affect our revenue and operating income as expressed in U.S. dollars. Our revenues, on a constant currency basis, would have been approximately $271 million higher for the year ended December 31, 2025 than our reported revenues of $45,183 million. See Part II, Item 7, "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations" for further information regarding our non-GAAP financial measure of constant currency.
We enter into foreign exchange forward contracts to mitigate fluctuations in forecasted U.S. dollar-equivalent revenues from changes in foreign currency exchange rates. These contracts may reduce, but do not entirely eliminate, the effect of foreign currency exchange fluctuations, and we may choose not to hedge certain exposures. We designate these contracts as cash flow hedges of forecasted foreign currency revenue and initially record the gains or losses on these derivative instruments as a component of accumulated other comprehensive income ("AOCI") within Stockholders' equity in the Consolidated Balance Sheets and reclassify the amounts into "Revenues" on the Consolidated Statements of Operations in the same period the forecasted transaction affects earnings. If the U.S dollar weakened by 10% as of December 31, 2025 and December 31, 2024, the amount recorded in AOCI related to our foreign exchange contracts, before taxes, would have been approximately $2,296 million and $1,850 million lower, respectively. This adverse change in AOCI would be expected to offset a corresponding favorable foreign currency change in the underlying forecasted revenues when recognized in earnings.
Excerpt. This section runs to 6,749 characters — read the whole filing at the SEC.
Item 8. Financial Statements and Supplementary Data
What to look forThe audited statements and their notes. The notes are where the accounting choices live.
The consolidated financial statements and accompanying notes listed in Part IV, Item 15(a)(1) of this Annual Report on Form 10-K are included immediately following Part IV hereof and incorporated by reference herein.
Item 9. Changes in and Disagreements with Accountants on Accounting and Financial Disclosure
None.
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Item 9A. Controls and Procedures
(a) Evaluation of Disclosure Controls and Procedures
Our management, with the participation of our co-Chief Executive Officers and Chief Financial Officer, evaluated the effectiveness of our disclosure controls and procedures (as defined in Rules 13a-15(e) and 15d-15(e) under the Exchange Act) as of the end of the period covered by this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Based on that evaluation, our co-Chief Executive Officers and Chief Financial Officer concluded that our disclosure controls and procedures as of the end of the period covered by this Annual Report on Form 10-K were effective in providing reasonable assurance that information required to be disclosed by us in reports that we file or submit under the Exchange Act, is recorded, processed, summarized and reported within the time periods specified in the Securities and Exchange Commission's rules and forms, and that such information is accumulated and communicated to our management, including our co-Chief Executive Officers and Chief Financial Officer, as appropriate, to allow timely decisions regarding required disclosures.
Our management, including our co-Chief Executive Officers and Chief Financial Officer, does not expect that our disclosure controls and procedures or our internal controls will prevent all errors and all fraud. A control system, no matter how well conceived and operated, can provide only reasonable, not absolute, assurance that the objectives of the control system are met. Further, the design of a control system must reflect the fact that there are resource constraints, and the benefits of controls must be considered relative to their costs. Because of the inherent limitations in all control systems, no evaluation of controls can provide absolute assurance that all control issues and instances of fraud, if any, within Netflix have been detected.
(b) Management's Annual Report on Internal Control Over Financial Reporting
Our management is responsible for establishing and maintaining adequate internal control over financial reporting (as defined in Rule 13a-15(f) of the Exchange Act). Our management assessed the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2025. In making this assessment, our management used the criteria set forth by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission ("COSO") in Internal Control-Integrated Framework (2013 framework). Based on our assessment under the framework in Internal Control-Integrated Framework (2013 framework), our management concluded that our internal control over financial reporting was effective as of December 31, 2025. The effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2025 has been audited by Ernst & Young LLP, an independent registered public accounting firm, as stated in their report that is included herein.
Excerpt. This section runs to 128,979 characters — read the whole filing at the SEC.
Educational material, not investment advice. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell anything.