Netflix details Canadian revenue and subscriber numbers in regulatory filing

TORONTO — Netflix pulled back the curtain on new financial details Monday that reveal how many Canadians subscribe to the service and how much they pay the streaming giant.

The Los Gatos, Calif.-based company raked in US$593 million (C$780 million) of revenue from Canada during the first nine months of the 2019 financial year, according documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

That compares to Canadian revenues of US$635 million in the full 12-month period of 2018, and US$508 million during 2017.

Those figures could add heat to the debate over Netflix’s decision not to pay domestic revenue taxes. Some critics have argued Netflix is drawing viewers away from homegrown TV programming while injecting very little Canadian content into the media landscape.

Under the current laws, foreign digital services, which include the streaming platform, do not collect federal goods and service tax (GST) or a combined federal-provincial sales tax known as HST.

The documents filed by the streaming platform also show 6.5 million paid subscribers were using its services in Canada as of Sept. 30 — an increase of 200,000 paid accounts from the end of 2018.

In 2017, Netflix committed to spending $500 million over five years on TV and film productions in Canada, a pledge the company said earlier this year it has already surpassed.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 16, 2019.

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David Friend, The Canadian Press