Netflix to revamp its app because it competes with social platforms for each day engagement

[ad_1] As YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram proceed to dominate cellular viewing, Netflix is rethinking how its app suits right into a social-first video panorama. Throughout its fourth-quarter earnings name on Tuesday, the corporate introduced plans to revamp its cellular app and develop its short-form video function, which it mentions may assist promote the brand new slate of unique video podcasts it unveiled final week.

Set to launch later in 2026, Netflix’s redesigned cellular app is meant to “higher serve the growth of our enterprise over the last decade to return,” based on co-CEO Greg Peters. The replace will act as a basis for ongoing experimentation, permitting the corporate to “iterate, check, evolve, and enhance” its providing over time.

On the heart of the redesign is deeper integration of vertical video feeds, which the streaming big has been experimenting with since Might. The feed shows brief clips from Netflix exhibits and films in a format acquainted to TikTok and Instagram Reels customers.

“You may think about us bringing extra clips based mostly on new content material varieties, like video podcasts,” Peters remarked through the earnings name, additional signaling that Netflix sees swipeable short-form clips as a strong instrument for capturing consideration and rising time spent within the app.

Netflix can also be making a major push into video podcasts—a sector the place YouTube has lengthy been the chief. This week, Netflix debuted its first unique video podcasts, together with exhibits hosted by high-profile personalities reminiscent of Pete Davidson and Michael Irvin. The corporate has additionally partnered with main podcast gamers to carry established video podcast libraries to the platform, together with tie-ups with Spotify and iHeartMedia.

Each of those strikes sign a broader effort to make content material discovery and each day engagement on Netflix really feel extra like a social platform expertise. On the identical time, Netflix has been cautious to place its technique as experimentation moderately than imitation. Talking on the TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 convention, CTO Elizabeth Stone emphasised that the corporate isn’t making an attempt to turn out to be TikTok, however moderately to strengthen its leisure discovery capabilities by means of mobile-first options.

In the course of the earnings name, co-CEO Ted Sarandos mirrored on the broader shift within the streaming business: providers are now not competing solely with each other, however with all the leisure business.

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“There’s by no means been extra competitors for creators, for client consideration, for promoting and subscription {dollars}, the aggressive traces round TV consumption are already blurring,” Sarandos mentioned. “TV shouldn't be what we grew up on. TV is now nearly all the things. The Oscars and the NFL are on YouTube…Apple’s competing for Emmys and Oscars, and Instagram is coming subsequent.”

Sarandos additionally commented on Netflix’s evolving movie technique, referencing the corporate’s latest shift in its theatrical launch technique because it prepares to accumulate Warner Bros. This indicators an openness to hybrid distribution fashions, as the road between cinema, streaming, and social content material continues to blur.

In 2025, Netflix delivered $45.2 billion in income, with advert income rising to over $1.5 billion. Moreover, Netflix crossed the 325 million paid subscriptions milestone within the fourth quarter.