Netflix is here to stay and it has already managed to surpass HBO in terms of revenue

Aug 7, 2014 09:29 GMT  ·  By

Netflix has been growing wildly in recent years, and now the company has announced that it not only has 50 million customers, but it has also reached a level where it generates more revenue from subscriptions than HBO, the cable network rival, does.

Reed Hastings, Netflix CEO, posted a message on Facebook, saying that this is only a minor milestone, but still one that’s worth mentioning.

More exactly, he stresses the fact that in the second quarter of the year, Netflix had revenues of $1.146 billion (€857,100 million), while HBO’s numbers only reached $1.141 billion (€853,400 million). The differences aren’t that large, truth be told, but it is still the first time when Netflix manages to get more money from subscriptions than HBO, even though it’s been streaming movies for only a few years, while HBO has been around for a lot longer.

“They still kick our [redacted] in profits and Emmy’s, but we are making progress. HBO rocks, and we are honored to be in the same league. (yes, I loved Silicon Valley and yes it hit a little close to home),” Hastings wrote on Facebook, a message that even got a thumbs-up from Mark Zuckerberg himself.

Netflix was founded back in 1997 and it only delivered DVDs by mail at the beginning. In 2007, it started to offer streaming videos, but business only picked up a few years later. Netflix has announced that it has 36.2 million subscribers in the United States and 13.8 million in other countries, which is a pretty impressive feat considering that there aren’t that many nations where Netflix is available.

HBO, on the other hand, was launched in 1972. While the company doesn’t like to share how many subscribers it has, estimates indicate that, at least in the United States, the company is faring much worse than Netflix. Outside the US, however, HBO has a far greater reach so it is quite likely that overall, it has more subscribers. The amounts of money it gets from cable companies, however, are likely a lot lower.

As for HBO’s history at the Emmys, company has been faring better than Netflix both considering how many nominations it has received and how many awards it won. For instance, this year, HBO has 99 nominations, while Netflix only has 31. In all fairness, however, HBO has been around a lot longer and has been producing original content for quite a long time.