Brazil was one of Netflix's first international breakthroughs. But new app usage data suggests it's struggling to keep up growth.
- Netflix may have stumbled during the fourth quarter in Brazil, a key Latin American market that was one of its first international breakthroughs, data from mobile-analytics firm SimilarWeb suggests.
- The fourth quarter is typically one of Netflix's biggest periods of the year for subscriber growth.
- But, in Brazil, SimilarWeb's mobile daily active user estimates - which can help analyze subscriber trends - suggested that Netflix usage was lower during the fourth quarter than in the third.
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Netflix may have stumbled during the fourth quarter in Brazil, a key Latin American market that was one of its first international breakthroughs, data from mobile-analytics firm SimilarWeb suggests.
The fourth quarter is typically one of Netflix's biggest periods of the year for subscriber growth. But, in Brazil, SimilarWeb's mobile daily active user estimates - which can help analyze subscriber trends - suggested that Netflix usage was lower during the fourth quarter than the third.
In Brazil, there were 10% fewer estimated daily active users on the Netflix mobile app during the fourth quarter than in the third. Daily active users in Brazil also fell 5% year over year, according to the SimilarWeb estimates.
SimilarWeb estimates average daily active users and other activity on apps and websites, such as the share of users who open the Netflix app each day, through a panel of hundreds of millions of Android phones and tablets globally. It tracks mobile usage of the Netflix app in 30 international regions, including Brazil, India, the UK, and Malaysia, where it has a sample size that makes up a statistically significant portion of the local device population.
While the data from SimilarWeb doesn't capture Netflix's full footprint, it has helped analyze Netflix's international subscriber trends in quarters past.
Brazil was one of Netflix's first international breakthroughs
Netflix initially won over audiences in Brazil with homegrown hits like "3%," which the A.V. Club reported was the second non-English language original released by Netflix.
The streaming company also helped telecom providers improve broadband access in the country, approached TV manufacturers to sell more smart devices there, and began accepting payment methods besides credit cards, to get more Brazilian audiences to stream video, as Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw reported in 2017.
Netflix is still releasing projects out of Brazil, like 2019's coming-of-age drama, "Sintonia." But the SimilarWeb data suggests they haven't been enough to keep subscriber growth up.
Latin America is Netflix's third-largest region by subscribers, with 29 million paid subscribers as of September 30, the company reported.
Over the past two years, the region hasn't grown as heartily as markets like Asia-Pacific and Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
Read the full analysis of Netflix's international Q4 mobile usage, as tracked by SimilarWeb, on Business Insider Prime: Netflix had a weak quarter in key international markets, according to exclusive data that has predicted subscriber growth trends
