As YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram proceed to dominate cell viewing, Netflix is rethinking how its app matches right into a social-first video panorama. Throughout its fourth-quarter earnings name on Tuesday, the corporate introduced plans to revamp its cell app and increase 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 cell 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, take a look at, evolve, and enhance” its providing over time.
On the middle of the redesign is deeper integration of vertical video feeds, which the streaming big has been experimenting with since Might. The feed shows quick clips from Netflix exhibits and flicks in a format acquainted to TikTok and Instagram Reels customers.
“You possibly can think about us bringing extra clips primarily based on new content material varieties, like video podcasts,” Peters remarked in the course of the earnings name, additional signaling that Netflix sees swipeable short-form clips as a strong software 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 resembling Pete Davidson and Michael Irvin. The corporate has additionally partnered with main podcast gamers to deliver 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 day by 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 slightly than imitation. Talking on the TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 convention, CTO Elizabeth Stone emphasised that the corporate isn’t attempting to grow to be TikTok, however slightly to strengthen its leisure discovery capabilities by way of mobile-first options.
Throughout 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 shopper consideration, for promoting and subscription {dollars}, the aggressive strains round TV consumption are already blurring,” Sarandos stated. “TV isn’t what we grew up on. TV is now nearly all the pieces. 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 current shift in its theatrical launch technique because it prepares to amass Warner Bros. This alerts 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.
