What's on Netflix these days? If you're a subscriber in the United States, less. A recent analysis on Netflix content worldwide has unveiled that while the rest of the countries that have the service have seen a growth in content in the last year, the U.S. version actually has 1% fewer titles than it did a year ago. The statistics don't tell the whole story though, and there's plenty of interesting stuff to note in how U.S. Netflix compares to other countries.
First, it should be noted that this analysis is not from Netflix itself, but rather Champion Traveler. The site pulled data from Netflix in 93 countries and analyzed the list of titles available from February 2016 (a month after Netflix announced its worldwide expansion) to the list of titles available in September 2017. After doing that, they found that while many countries encountered an increase of content anywhere from 18% to 384%, the United States had a decrease in content by 1%.
If you're a Netflix subscriber in the U.S. though, it's hardly time to panic as that single percentage only represents 76 fewer titles that can be streamed when compared to February of 2016. With the exception of Japan, America still has the largest selection internationally by far (in this analysis at least), although several countries are only about 1000 titles away from catching up. While Japan is ahead of the United States in its content count, the gap between them is only a little over 500 titles, so it's not as though it's that far off from the top dog.
Of course, with Disney pulling out of their deal with Netflix and more networks looking to get into their own streaming services, there's a chance that gap could widen. As far as the rest of the countries are concerned, their growth is to be expected as their astronomical percentage increases in content typically are tied to the fact that there wasn't nearly as much for them to stream a year ago as there is now. It appears Netflix is putting a lot of focus into continuing to offer more content to other countries in an effort to up the level of quality closer to that of America's Netflix, which is good news for consumers in other countries.
Bottom line, don't be too concerned about Netflix having less titles, as they're dropping tons of cash in weird ways to keep us invested. Learn more about their ventures in attempting to snatch up every major comedian, or perhaps learn about the insane amount of debt they've racked up just to bring us more great shows like Stranger Things. For more on Netflix and content, be sure to check out our recent episode of The Cord Cutter Podcast where we breakdown all the quality content arriving on the platform in September. For a complete look at every new show that's coming out this fall, visit our fall premiere guide.
