Netflix says it’s streamed 95 billion hours in 2025, and a lot of ads too
Netflix says it’s on track to “double” its advertising revenue this year as the company continues ot build out its ad tech platform. The streaming giant shared the news as part of its second-quarter earnings results released on Thursday, which revealed that Netflix raked in $11.08 billion in revenue over the past few months, marking a 16 percent year-over-year increase.
In addition to its earnings report, Netflix also released viewership data for the first half of 2025. Netflix says users watched 95 billion hours on Netflix during this time, with Adolescence topping the chart as the most-watched series with 145 million views, followed by Squid Game seasons 2 and 3. Ms. Rachel, the popular show for toddlers that originated on YouTube, has also made the list, coming in at number seven.
Meanwhile, Back in Action was the service’s most-watched movie in the first half of the year, racking up 165 million views, with Straw and The Life List taking the next spots. The animated hit film K-Pop Demon Hunters also hit 37 million views in the weeks since its June release. The streaming service says nearly half of all the viewing for Netflix originals on the list came from titles that debuted in 2023 or before, like Ozark and Orange is the New Black.
In its letter to investors, Netflix says its in-house ad tech platform “is foundational” to its advertising strategy, and will allow the service to offer better measurement, improved ad targeting, and new formats. The company first started testing its ad tech platform last year, and it has since rolled out to all markets where Netflix’s ad-supported plan is available.
Netflix doesn’t say how it plans to keep its advertising revenue growing, but one way that competitors have chosen is to show people more ads. After forcing ad-supported streaming onto its existing members last year, Amazon Prime Video has since doubled the number of ads it shows during streams, according to a report from Adweek. An HBO Max support page spotted by PCWorld also revealed that it increased ads on the service’s Basic tier.
In May, Netflix revealed that its ad-supported tier reaches more than 94 million users. It also teased new ad formats, including ones that appear when you pause what you’re watching. During an earnings call on Thursday, Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters confirmed that the company will roll out interactive ads in the “second half” of 2025.
Netflix raised its prices in January, with its ad-supported plan going from $6.99 to $7.99 per month, and its cheapest commercial-free plan increasing from $15.49 to $17.99 per month. The service also started rolling out its big homepage redesign on TV in May, which it says has reached around 50 percent of customers. “Over time, we expect this redesigned experience — along with our new responsive recommendations that update rows of titles in real time — will help our members more easily find shows, movies, live events and games they want to watch and play,” Netflix writes in its letter to investors.
As of its April earnings report, Netflix has stopped reporting how many subscribers it adds each quarter. The streamer is instead highlighting other revenue drivers for the business, like advertising.