netflix may be regretting waiting so long to roll out an adsupported tier based on its performance in fourth quarter the new service is a blockbuster reporting its fourth quarter earnings on thursday netflix said it had added 77 million subscribers well above expectations for the streaming service and three times the number it added in third quarter that brought its total to 2308 million subscribers worldwide the streamer credited part of that accelerated growth to the introduction of a lowerpriced adsupported tier in november something the company had long resisted under coceo reed hastings it’s tempting to read something into it but around the same time netflix released its earnings data hastings said he is stepping down from running the company he cofounded and transitioning to executive chairman there’s sure to be lots of speculation over why hastings said in a blog post announcing his exit that it had been in the works for a while and his apparently misplaced disinterest in advertising could be seen as a reason but back to the numbers netflix had said before the earnings call likely to quell expectations that it didn’t expect the adsupported tier to make an appreciable impact on fourth quarter it projected a gain of 45 million subscribers clearly the adsupported tier did contribute to gains though netflix declined to saw exactly how many new subscribers were to the adsupported tier still a report released today by ampere analysis says that daily subscription signups shot up by more than 50 percent during the first few days the adsupported tier was available netflix had its best signup rate during that time nov 35 since the start of the pandemic in april 2020 almost 10 percent of new customer signups are now for the adsupported tier the report found the bigger numbers came at a time when the streamer needed the shot in the arm netflix lost subscribers during first and second quarters last year before rebounding a bit in third quarter everyone had a theory on the declines the first in a decade for the longtime streaming leader which depending how you crunch the numbers has fallen behind disney’s disney streaming service in total subscribers—though disney also counts espn and hulu in those subs so the claim is murky some people blamed netflix’s big price increase for the subscriber decline others pointed to inflated gains during covid that could never last when the lockdowns lifted the streamer claimed that password sharing was eating into subscribers and it has pledged to crack down on that in 2023 as for netflix’s other numbers it fell a little short on revenue with 785 billion vs projects of 81 billion earnings per share were also well below what had been projected netflix had said in third quarter’s earnings release that it would focus more on revenue as its top metric going forward rather than subscribers—but after today’s results you’d expect the company to walk that back a bit among other highlights of the earnings release netflix said wednesday ranks as its no 3 series of all time while glass onion a knives out mystery is its fourthmostpopular film ever and the documentary harry  meghan is the secondranked doc of all time on the service capitalizing on the release of prince harry’s popular memoir spare