Netflix Inc (NFLX) 2021 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Good afternoon, and welcome to the Netflix Q2 2021 Earnings Interview. I'm Spencer Wang, VP of IR and Corporate Development. Joining me today are Co-CEO, Reed Hastings; Co-CEO and Chief Content Officer, Ted Sarandos; COO and Chief Product Officer, Greg Peters; and CFO, Spence Neumann. Our interviewer this quarter is Nidhi Gupta from Fidelity.

下午好，歡迎來到 Netflix 2021 年第二季財報採訪。我是 Spencer Wang，IR 和企業發展副總裁。今天加入我的是聯合執行長 Reed Hastings；聯合執行長兼首席內容長 Ted Sarandos；營運長兼首席產品長 Greg Peters；和財務長斯賓塞·諾伊曼。本季我們的訪談者是來自 Fidelity 的 Nidhi Gupta。

As a reminder, we'll be making forward-looking statements, and actual results may vary. Let's turn it over to Nidhi now for her first question.

提醒一下，我們將做出前瞻性陳述，實際結果可能會有所不同。現在讓我們向 Nidhi 詢問她的第一個問題。

Thank you, Spencer. Great to be with you all again this quarter. Lots of exciting stuff to talk about. So let's dive in.

謝謝你，史賓塞。很高興本季再次與大家見面。有很多令人興奮的事情可以談論。那麼就讓我們深入了解一下吧。

Just starting with the quarter. Nice to see net adds coming in a little bit better than your expectations. Help us understand what contributed to that?

剛從季度開始。很高興看到淨增量比您的預期好一點。幫助我們了解是什麼造成了這種情況？

Sure, Nidhi, I can take that and others can jump in. But as you saw, the quarter kind of played out pretty much as expected. So we delivered $1.5 million paid net adds relative to a guide of $1 million. And what we're seeing is what we've sort of been talking about for the last couple of quarters and that there's still a bit of choppiness to our growth. We had the kind of big pull forward in 2020 of subscriber adds.

當然，尼迪，我可以接受這一點，其他人也可以加入進來。但正如你所看到的，本季的表現與預期基本一致。因此，相對於 100 萬美元的指導價值，我們交付了 150 萬美元的付費淨增量。我們看到的是過去幾季我們一直在談論的事情，我們的成長仍然有點不穩定。 2020 年，我們的訂閱用戶數量大幅成長。

We also had to push in production of some of our kind of key returning titles and big tent-pole new releases until the latter part of the year. But overall, the business is performing well. Our churn is actually down relative to the more comparable 2-year-ago period in 2019, Q2 of '19 before COVID. Our viewing and we've talked about in the letter, our engagement is up nearly 20% over that period. But we still feel a little bit of that drag in terms of our acquisition growth as we're kind of working through what we hope is -- we can't be sure but what we hope is the tail end of this COVID choppiness where we see on the acquisition side as markets reopen, it does slow things down a little bit.

我們還必須在今年下半年之前推動一些重要回歸遊戲和大型新遊戲的製作。但總體而言，業務表現良好。與 2019 年（新冠疫情之前的 19 年第二季）更具可比性的兩年前相比，我們的客戶流失率實際上有所下降。我們的觀看次數以及我們在信中談到的，在此期間我們的參與度提高了近 20%。但就我們的收購成長而言，我們仍然感受到了一點拖累，因為我們正在努力解決我們所希望的事情——我們不能確定，但我們希望的是這種新冠動蕩的尾聲，我們從收購方面來看，隨著市場重新開放，事情確實會放緩一些。

Yes. And I'd have to say that's a nice steady progression in terms of getting our COVID-delayed slate back up for our members little by little. We're still very heavily back-weighted for this year. But there's a nice steady progress in the quality of the content and the excitement around the programming that came out in this past quarter, which we saw across the board in our films with Army of the Dead and Fatherhood and our series, both local language and English language for the world, like Lupin and Who Killed Sara?, and even our animated projects like Mitchells vs The Machines was a nice hit this quarter. So we see nice steady progress but reminder that we're still pretty back-weighted in that slate.

是的。我必須說，就讓我們的會員逐漸恢復因新冠疫情而延遲的日程而言，這是一個很好的穩定進展。今年我們的反向加權仍然非常嚴重。但上個季度推出的內容品質和節目令人興奮的方面取得了良好的穩定進步，我們在《死亡軍團》和《父親》的電影以及我們的系列節目中全面看到了這一點，無論是本地語言還是本地語言。世界英語，例如《盧平》和《誰殺了莎拉？》，甚至我們的動畫項目，例如《米切爾大戰機器》，在本季度都很受歡迎。因此，我們看到了良好的穩定進展，但提醒我們在這方面仍然相當落後。

What are you seeing in the business over the last month or so as some of your markets have really started to open up? What's kind of in your guidance for that and also the Olympics balanced with the fact that you have a lot more content coming in the second half?

過去一個月左右，隨著您的一些市場真正開始開放，您對業務有何看法？您對此以及奧運會的指導是怎樣的，與下半場將推出更多內容這一事實相平衡？

Sure. Well, the Q3 guide is actually -- it kind of reflects a lot of what we've seen in Q2 frankly. So as I mentioned, the underlying business metrics are really healthy. The one thing we do see with COVID is we don't see the big spikes that we saw in terms of engagement or acquisition or churn that we saw in the very early days of the pandemic. But on the margin, acquisition is impacted.

當然。嗯，第三季度指南實際上——坦率地反映了我們在第二季度看到的很多內容。正如我所提到的，基本業務指標非常健康。我們在新冠疫情中看到的一件事是，我們沒有看到在疫情初期看到的參與度、收購或流失方面的大幅飆升。但在邊際上，收購受到了影響。

So for example, in Q2, when things tightened up a little bit, say, in Brazil or India, we did see some increase in acquisition. And similarly, as markets reopened, particularly in part -- in most of EMEA and the UCAN region, that did have a bit of a headwind on acquisition. And that's reflected basically in our Q3 guide as well, so similar business fundamentals that hopefully kind of starting to move a little bit further away from those market reopenings, which is why you do see some incremental growth, so a better seasonal period as well as moving a bit away from those market reopenings but not a big fundamental change and then hopefully into even more reacceleration as we get to the end of the year as we really get into the kind of heart of our kind of strong release schedule as well as peak seasonality.

例如，在第二季度，當情況稍微收緊時，例如在巴西或印度，我們確實看到收購增加。同樣，隨著市場重新開放，特別是在歐洲、中東和非洲 (EMEA) 和 UCAN 地區的大部分地區，收購確實遇到了一些阻力。這基本上也反映在我們的第三季指南中，因此類似的業務基本面希望開始遠離市場重新開放的情況，這就是為什麼你確實看到了一些增量增長，因此有一個更好的季節性時期以及距離市場重新開放有所距離，但不會發生重大根本性變化，然後希望在年底時能夠進一步加速，因為我們真正進入了強勁的發布計劃和高峰期的核心季節性。

I think a big question on investors' minds is just how do you feel about your ability to get back to pre-COVID levels of net adds as we get into 2022.

我認為投資者心中的一個大問題是，當我們進入 2022 年時，您對恢復到新冠疫情前的淨增量水平的能力有何看法。

Yes. Well -- and others should chime in. But what's -- I just want to kind of emphasize, even with the Q3 guide and then into Q4, when -- if we deliver on our Q3 guide, we talk about in the letter, that's -- that will be -- the growth pattern in our business is -- over a long term is -- over the long trends is remarkably consistent and steady. So we'll have -- if we deliver on our guide, it means we'll have added 54 million new members over that 2-year period or on average, 27 million a year, which is right in line with our past few years of growth in 2018 and '19.

是的。好吧，其他人也應該插話。但是，我只是想強調一下，即使有了第三季度指南，然後進入第四季度，如果我們交付第三季度指南，我們會在信中討論，那就是——從長遠來看，我們業務的成長模式是－長期趨勢是非常一致且穩定的。因此，如果我們兌現了我們的指南，這意味著我們將在這兩年內增加 5,400 萬新會員，或平均每年增加 2,700 萬，這與我們過去幾年的情況相符2018 年和 19 年的成長。

So we remain on that growth trajectory. And again, once we get into Q4, what we would expect is as we get through, hopefully, that tail end of the COVID choppiness, we get into that strong strength of slate. We get to a kind of a high seasonal period for us. We'd expect to end the year on a much more kind of normalized growth trajectory, but we kind of have to get there.

因此，我們仍保持成長軌跡。再說一次，一旦我們進入第四季度，我們所期望的是，當我們度過新冠疫情動盪的尾聲時，我們將進入強勁的石板實力。我們進入了一個旺季時期。我們預計今年年底會出現更正常化的成長軌跡，但我們必須實現這一目標。

And Nidhi, you can decompose the long-term risk into 2 things. One is does Internet streaming slowdown, and that seems pretty unlikely. Internet streaming has been amazingly consistent, prolific. As you get new competition in, you get a validation of more reasons to get a smart TV or unlimited broadband. So I think, for at least the next several years, the growth story of streaming as a whole is very intact.

Nidhi，您可以將長期風險分解為兩件事。一是網路串流速度是否會變慢，但這似乎不太可能。網路串流媒體的一致性和豐富性令人驚訝。隨著新的競爭的到來，您會得到更多購買智慧電視或無限寬頻的理由。所以我認為，至少在接下來的幾年裡，串流媒體作為一個整體的成長故事是非常完整的。

And then you've got the secular competition story. Does HBO or Disney or other entry have a differential impact compared to the past? And we're not seeing that in the detail that we have per country because they're launched in some countries and not in others. That gives us comfort. We're not seeing that in the total viewing like the Nielsen measures. And so we think mostly all of streaming is a growth story competing from linear TV and that, that will be true until, say, streaming is 50%, 60%, 70% of viewing. And then there's going to be shakeout, and we want to be prepared and leading that. But again, the next couple years, streaming is still in the early stages.

然後就是世俗競爭的故事。與過去相比，HBO、迪士尼或其他條目是否會產生不同的影響？我們沒有看到每個國家/地區的詳細信息，因為它們是在某些國家/地區推出的，而不是在其他國家/地區推出的。這帶給我們安慰。我們在總觀看次數中並沒有看到像尼爾森測量那樣的情況。因此，我們認為大多數串流媒體都是一個與線性電視競爭的成長故事，直到串流媒體佔觀看次數的 50%、60%、70% 之前，情況都是如此。然後就會出現洗牌，我們希望做好準備並引領這個過程。但同樣，未來幾年，串流媒體仍處於早期階段。

That's super helpful, Reed. That actually answered my next question. So maybe just shifting gears to your longer-term outlook. There's been some focus in the market recently on additional sources of revenue that you might have in the future. But before we get to that, help us understand what makes Netflix' core business a great investment for shareholders over the next 5-plus years. What's kind of the growth, free cash flow, capital return algorithm that gets you excited that you think we should be focused on?

這非常有幫助，里德。這實際上回答了我的下一個問題。因此，也許只是轉向你的長期前景。最近市場的焦點是您未來可能擁有的其他收入來源。但在此之前，請幫助我們了解是什麼讓 Netflix 的核心業務在未來 5 年多的時間內成為股東的巨大投資。什麼樣的成長、自由現金流、資本回報演算法讓你感到興奮，你認為我們應該關注？

You go ahead, Spence.

你繼續吧，史賓賽。

Well, I was going to throw it to one of you first if you like, so that's okay. You want to go?

好吧，如果你願意的話，我打算先把它扔給你們中的一個人，所以沒關係。你想去？

The big picture that all investors get is being a secular Internet play. And as much as Amazon was strong in 2005 and 2008, all of us collectively underestimated the impact of what the Internet could do. And this is the Internet applied to entertainment, and consumer entertainment around the world is an enormous market. It has great potential for us and potentially our competitors. And so that big thesis is, again, what gets people excited.

所有投資者的總體願景是成為一場世俗的網路遊戲。儘管亞馬遜在 2005 年和 2008 年表現強勁，但我們所有人都低估了網路的影響力。而這就是網路應用於娛樂，而消費娛樂在全世界都是一個龐大的市場。它對我們和潛在的競爭對手來說都有巨大的潛力。因此，這篇大論文再次讓人興奮不已。

And when we're growing revenue by 19%, it's not that hard to grow 300 basis points of margin. As the revenue growth slows, it'll get a little bit tougher, but we'll continue to lean into that. And so I would say it's fundamentally a story of this big secular revenue growth management team committed to growing profits and cash flows and then returning those cash flows through buybacks, which Spence got a big start on this quarter. So over to you, Spence.

當我們的營收成長 19% 時，利潤率成長 300 個基點並不困難。隨著收入成長放緩，情況會變得更加困難，但我們將繼續關注這一點。因此，我想說，這從根本上講是一個大型長期收入成長管理團隊致力於增加利潤和現金流，然後透過回購返還這些現金流的故事，斯賓塞在本季度取得了一個良好的開端。那就交給你了，斯彭斯。

Yes. No, I just -- you hit on all the key points. I would just add that it's still early days in pretty much every market around the world. I mean if we -- if you go overall -- and Nidhi, as you know, we're roughly 20% penetrated in broadband homes, and we talked on the last call that there's 800 million to 900 million either broadband or pay TV households around the world outside of China. And as we continue to improve our service and the accessibility of our service, we don't see why we can't be in all or most of those homes over time if we're doing our job.

是的。不，我只是——你擊中了所有關鍵點。我想補充一點，全球幾乎每個市場都還處於早期階段。我的意思是，如果我們——如果你從整體上看——以及Nidhi，正如你所知，我們在寬頻家庭中的滲透率大約為20%，我們在最後一次電話會議中談到，有8億到9 億個寬頻或付費電視家庭中國以外的世界各地。隨著我們不斷改進我們的服務和服務的可及性，我們不明白為什麼如果我們在做好我們的工作，我們不能隨著時間的推移進入所有或大部分這些家庭。

And then if you look at the range from an APAC region where we're only roughly 10% penetrated, so clearly early days, to our arguably, I guess, more tenured markets at least like in the UCAN, where even there with some of the metrics we put in the earnings letter streaming, and Reed alluded to this is, is only about 26%, according to Nielsen, of viewing consumption. So the 60% plus is still linear consumption. And then within streaming, we're only 7% -- we're only at 7% share of total TV. So we're only 7% of that 26%. So there's big tailwinds there in terms of that overall trend from linear to streaming entertainment.

然後，如果你看一下從亞太地區的範圍來看，我們的滲透率只有大約10%，所以顯然還處於早期階段，我想，我們可以說是更長期的市場，至少像UCAN 一樣，即使在那裡，也有一些根據尼爾森的數據，我們在財報信中提到的串流指標（里德提到的這一點）僅佔觀看消費的 26% 左右。所以60%以上還是線性消耗。然後在串流媒體領域，我們只佔電視總份額的 7%。所以我們只是那 26% 的 7%。因此，從線性娛樂到串流娛樂的整體趨勢存在著巨大的推動力。

And then that plays out in the financials. So again, our profit margins over the last 5 years have grown 5x. Our absolute profit dollars have grown 20x as the business has scaled from about $100 million to $2 billion of operating income per quarter over the past 5 years. And so that will continue to scale, we think, in a healthy way because the nature of our business scales well. It's creating content from anywhere to everywhere in this very large addressable market with these big profit pools. So we think we have a long runway of growth, profitability and return of value to shareholders.

然後這會在財務方面反映出來。同樣，過去 5 年我們的利潤率成長了 5 倍。過去 5 年，我們的業務從每季約 1 億美元營業收入擴大到 20 億美元，我們的絕對利潤成長了 20 倍。我們認為，這將繼續以健康的方式擴展，因為我們業務的性質可以很好地擴展。它在這個擁有巨大利潤池的龐大潛在市場中隨時隨地創作內容。因此，我們認為我們的成長、獲利能力和股東價值回報還有很長的路要走。

And I think if you think about how slow the business fundamentally changes and how quickly streaming has changed the entire marketplace in terms of the way consumers watch, you go back to about only 8 to 10 years ago, and no one was looking to the Internet or to streaming for the highest quality content. And today, the most watched, the most talked about, the most award-winning television is all coming out on streaming services.

我認為，如果你考慮一下業務從根本上改變的速度有多慢，以及串流媒體在消費者觀看方式方面改變整個市場的速度有多快，你就會回到大約8 到10 年前，當時沒有人關注網路或串流最高品質的內容。如今，收視率最高、談論最多、獲獎最多的電視節目都透過串流媒體服務播出。

And to Spence's point, you've got this enormous addressable audience. We're only in a fraction of them, and we're only getting a small percentage of their total viewing. So it's still an enormous prize, and we're still in the best position to run after it as we've kind of expanded what Netflix is to members, which is not just a show you might like, but it's the shows you like. It's the films you love.

對史賓塞來說，你已經擁有如此龐大的目標受眾。我們只佔其中的一小部分，而且我們只獲得了他們總觀看次數的一小部分。所以它仍然是一個巨大的獎項，我們仍然處於追逐它的最佳位置，因為我們已經將 Netflix 的功能擴展到會員，這不僅僅是您可能喜歡的節目，而是您喜歡的節目。這是你喜歡的電影。

Thank you for letting us pitch out the stock.

感謝您讓我們推銷股票。

Great to give you a platform. No, I mean you make a good point. You've created a consumer product with global appeal. And as you said, if you do your job, there's no reason you shouldn't be in every Internet household over time. At the same time, not all subs are created equal, and I think there's a lot of debate in the market as to how long can you continue to grow revenue double digit without some of these lower ARPU markets really starting to kick in, in terms of kind of meaningful revenue contribution. And even this quarter, 2/3 of your net adds came from the Asia Pac region. So can you shed a little bit of light on that debate?

很高興給你一個平台。不，我的意思是你說得很好。您創造了一款具有全球吸引力的消費品。正如您所說，如果您做好自己的工作，那麼隨著時間的推移，您沒有理由不出現在每個網路家庭中。同時，並非所有訂閱者都是平等的，我認為市場上存在著許多爭論，即在沒有這些較低 ARPU 市場真正開始發揮作用的情況下，你能繼續以兩位數增長收入多久。一種有意義的收入貢獻。即使在本季度，2/3 的淨增量也來自亞太地區。那麼您能否對這場辯論進行一些闡述？

Greg, do you want to take it a little bit too in terms of just some of the growth in those regions in our pricing?

格雷格（Greg），您是否也想在我們的定價中考慮這些地區的一些增長？

Yes. And I would say we're working hard to think about how do we find this wide range of price points that speaks to a feature set and consumer needs in more affluent markets, and we're really trying to find ways to add more value there, while we are also thinking about the sort of populations that you're talking about and making sure that we're increasing the accessibility of the service and really the ability to participate in and derive joy from the stories that we're telling to more and more parts of the world's population that don't have as much means to pay.

是的。我想說的是，我們正在努力思考如何找到能夠滿足更富裕市場的功能集和消費者需求的廣泛價格點，並且我們確實在努力尋找增加更多價值的方法，同時我們也在考慮您所談論的人群類型，並確保我們正在提高服務的可及性，以及真正參與我們向更多人講述的故事並從中獲得快樂的能力以及世界上更多沒有足夠支付能力的人。

And of course, the trick there is to find the right feature set offerings that allow us to sort of broaden that range without cannibalizing the other layers. And we really take this sort of iterative approach where we try different solutions to that sort of puzzle and then measure them based on this -- what's the net revenue that we're seeing.

當然，訣竅是找到合適的功能集產品，使我們能夠在不蠶食其他層的情況下擴大該範圍。我們確實採用了這種迭代方法，嘗試不同的解決方案來解決此類難題，然後基於此來衡量它們——我們看到的淨收入是多少。

And so very much what we're trying to do is, as we bring in lower price plan offerings that sort of decrease average revenue per member, we also think about that from the calculus of expanding the funnel in a way that delivers total net positive revenue, and we're definitely seeing that. And the mobile plan launches that we did in 78 countries this quarter are an example of us trying to make incremental progress against that puzzle and broaden that reach.

我們正在努力做的是，當我們引入較低價格的計劃產品時，這會降低每個會員的平均收入，我們也會從以提供總淨正值的方式擴大漏斗的角度來考慮這一點收入，我們肯定看到了這一點。本季我們在 78 個國家推出的行動計畫就是我們努力在解決這個難題並擴大覆蓋範圍方面取得漸進進展的一個例子。

That's very helpful. How is competition, particularly as the competition consolidates, affecting just your thinking on longer-term pricing power around the world?

這非常有幫助。競爭，特別是隨著競爭的鞏固，如何影響您對全球長期定價能力的看法？

I think, ultimately, we are competing already with tons of forms of places that consumers can spend their hard-earned money on entertainment. And mostly, what we are looking at is in the specific calculus of how do we deliver more value, how do we provide a wider range of incredible stories at high quality and diversity of content that appeals to those consumers and appeals to more and more consumers around the world. And if we do a good job there, then ultimately, then we have the ability to go back and occasionally ask some of those members to pay a little bit more to keep that virtuous cycle going.

我認為，最終，我們已經在與消費者可以將辛苦賺來的錢花在娛樂上的大量場所競爭。大多數情況下，我們關注的是如何提供更多價值的具體計算，如何以高品質和多樣性的內容提供更廣泛的令人難以置信的故事，吸引這些消費者並吸引越來越多的消費者世界各地。如果我們在那裡做得很好，那麼最終我們就有能力回去，偶爾要求其中一些成員多付一點錢，以保持良性循環的持續下去。

And so I would say on the demand side -- maybe I'll let Ted speak to the supply side, if you will, in a second. But on the demand side, really, it's just that sort of very narrow focus on are we doing a good job at adding value and continuing to deliver more to our members.

所以我想說的是需求面——如果你願意的話，也許我會讓特德談談供應方面。但在需求方面，實際上，我們只是非常狹隘地關注我們是否在增加價值方面做得很好，並繼續為我們的會員提供更多服務。

Yes. And I think in general, the dynamics of consolidation is you see it across all of these companies basically had consolidated themselves into bundles on cable for years. And I do think all the access to the -- these are all the same players we've been competing with from the beginning just through different channels. So I think, in general, that doesn't change in terms of what the offering is. And in terms of access to that offering, Netflix, because of the size of our distribution platform and our ability to connect creators with a big audience, has always been a big help in terms of luring content to our platform.

是的。我認為總的來說，整合的動態是你可以看到所有這些公司多年來基本上都將自己整合到有線電視捆綁中。我確實認為所有的存取權限都是——這些都是我們從一開始就透過不同管道與之競爭的相同玩家。所以我認為，總的來說，就產品內容而言，這並沒有改變。在訪問該產品方面，Netflix 由於我們的發行平台的規模以及我們將創作者與大量觀眾聯繫起來的能力，一直在吸引內容到我們的平台方面提供了很大的幫助。

And Nidhi, certainly, Disney buying Fox helps Disney become more of a general entertainment service rather than just a kids and family. Time Warner, Discovery, if that goes through, that helps some, but it's not as significant, I would say, as Disney, Fox. And then for the remaining 3, how they combine or don't combine or cooperate, it's unclear. But again, day to day, we just focus on the content choosing and conversation, how do we improve the service for our members. And like Greg said, there's so much competition from Instagram and TikTok and sports and the Olympics and everything else that, back to the Nielsen data for the U.S., there's plenty of room to grow without taking it away from the other streamers.

當然，尼迪（Nidhi），迪士尼收購福克斯有助於迪士尼更多地成為通用娛樂服務，而不僅僅是兒童和家庭。時代華納、探索頻道，如果成功的話，會對某些人有幫助，但我想說，它不如迪士尼、福斯那麼重要。然後對於剩下的3個，他們如何結合或不結合或合作，還不清楚。但同樣，日復一日，我們只專注於內容選擇和對話，以及如何改善為會員提供的服務。正如格雷格所說，來自 Instagram 和 TikTok、體育、奧運會和其他一切的競爭如此激烈，回到尼爾森的美國數據，在不影響其他串流媒體的情況下，還有很大的成長空間。

And when I look at all of these, when do those consolidations, when are they 1 and 1 equals 3 or 1 and 1 equals 4 versus what most of them tend to be, which is 1 and 1 equals 2?

當我看到所有這些時，這些合併是什麼時候進行的？它們什麼時候是 1 和 1 等於 3 或 1 和 1 等於 4，而大多數情況下是 1 和 1 等於 2？

Yes. No, that makes a lot of sense. Switching gears to you, Spence. The last couple of quarters have shown us just how much profit potential is in this business. Going back to traditional TV networks, the most profitable networks did 40% plus EBIT margins at peak, and they didn't have the scale and direct-to-consumer business model that you have. So what are kind of the puts and takes as you look at your long-term margin potential against that 40% plus history that we've seen.

是的。不，這很有意義。斯彭斯，換個方向吧。過去幾季向我們展示了這項業務的利潤潛力有多大。回到傳統電視網絡，最賺錢的網絡在高峰期的息稅前利潤率高達 40% 以上，而且他們沒有像你這樣的規模和直接面向消費者的商業模式。那麼，當你根據我們所看到的 40% 以上的歷史來看你的長期利潤潛力時，看跌期權和看跌期權是什麼樣的。

Well, Nidhi, I'm definitely not going to provide long-term guidance relative to the 40%. So while I appreciate it, but it's nice to know that those comparables are out there or those benchmarks are out there to have that ambition. But as we talked about before, what's -- what we love is that our business has a very scalable model. And so what's most important for us is to grow healthy, and by that I mean, being able to aggressively, strategically invest in the growth of our business while increasing our profit.

好吧，Nidhi，我絕對不會提供相對於 40% 的長期指導。因此，雖然我很欣賞這一點，但很高興知道這些可比較的東西已經存在，或者那些基準已經存在以實現這一目標。但正如我們之前談到的，我們喜歡的是我們的業務擁有一個非常可擴展的模型。因此，對我們來說最重要的是健康成長，我的意思是，能夠積極地、策略性地投資我們的業務成長，同時增加我們的利潤。

And that's what I talked about before. We have been doing pretty well so far, and we'll continue to feel our way along. So to date, we have been growing at that 3 percentage points per year for over any few year period. And as Reed said, that's something that's been reasonably, I wouldn't say easy but accomplishable for sure when we're growing in that 20% or so revenue growth per year.

這就是我之前談到的。到目前為止，我們做得很好，我們將繼續摸索前進。到目前為止，我們在任何幾年內都以每年 3 個百分點的速度成長。正如里德所說，這是合理的事情，我不會說這是容易的，但當我們每年以 20% 左右的收入成長時，這是肯定可以實現的。

Now obviously, that can't last forever in terms of 3 percentage points a year, but we think we have a long runway of growth. We have some things that work to our advantage in terms of the global nature of our platform, the ability to create stories anywhere and so that they travel well not just in their market but across countries and markets around the world. So that's a nice model for us. We have a revenue model and subscription that also scales well in kind of established larger and smaller and emerging markets, and that's great as well. And then it's going to depend a bit on, as the business evolves, competitive dynamics, relative cost of content. Of course, those things on the margin impact margin but a lot of healthy growth ahead of us.

顯然，每年 3 個百分點的成長不可能永遠持續下去，但我們認為我們還有很長的成長道路。我們擁有一些對我們有利的東西，例如我們平台的全球性、在任何地方創作故事的能力，這樣它們不僅可以在自己的市場上傳播，而且可以在世界各地的國家和市場傳播。所以這對我們來說是一個很好的模型。我們的收入模式和訂閱也可以在規模較大、規模較小的成熟市場和新興市場中很好地擴展，這也很棒。隨著業務的發展，這將在一定程度上取決於競爭動態和內容的相對成本。當然，這些邊際因素會影響利潤率，但眼前還有很多健康的成長。

And Reed, the 300 basis points of margin per year has instilled a good amount of discipline on the business, probably reined in Ted's content budget a little bit on the margin. But why is that sort of the right cadence going forward? And I know it's an average. But if we look back in 5 years and the average was lower than that, would it have been because of new businesses you found to invest in or competitive forces or something else?

Reed 每年 300 個基點的利潤已經給業務灌輸了很好的紀律，可能會稍微控制一下 Ted 的內容預算。但為什麼會出現這種正確的節奏呢？我知道這是平均值。但如果5年後回頭看，平均低於這個水平，是不是因為你發現了新的業務要投資，或是競爭力量還是其他什麼原因？

I don't think there was a ton of magic in the 300 basis points. If we had decided on 200 or 400, we'd be marginally different today. But I think in the long term, we get to the same place. So it's a guess that sets up a framework for how we think about that allocation into faster growth that Ted and Greg have been driving and providing a profit stream for our investors.

我不認為 300 個基點有太多魔力。如果我們決定 200 或 400，今天的情況就會略有不同。但我認為從長遠來看，我們會達到同樣的目標。因此，這是一個猜測，為我們如何思考泰德和格雷格一直在推動並為我們的投資者提供利潤流的更快增長的配置建立了一個框架。

So we're comfortable on that balance. And the big prize is keeping revenue growth at 20%. So most of our time is like, okay, how do we get the revenue growth going, how do we have the content that you just can't ignore, everybody's talking about, and that's what fuels those big surges. And the more we do, the more we're learning. So we're making a ton of progress show by show, film by film of how to really push the consumer satisfaction. So that's very promising. That's work that you'll see showing up next year and beyond.

所以我們對這種平衡感到滿意。最重要的是保持 20% 的收入成長。所以我們大部分時間都在想，好吧，我們如何讓收入成長，我們如何擁有你無法忽視的內容，每個人都在談論，這就是推動這些大幅成長的原因。我們做得越多，學到的就越多。因此，我們在一個又一個節目、一個又一個電影中，在如何真正提高消費者滿意度方面取得了巨大進展。所以這是非常有希望的。這些工作您將在明年及以後看到。

Great. Reed, maybe just staying on you for a minute. On the last earnings call, you talked about video streaming being sort of the main profit pool and over time, potentially smaller supporting profit pools. Over the last few months, you've made some key hires in gaming and podcasting. You've launched an online store. I believe you've expanded your deal with Shonda Rhimes to include live entertainment. Can you just talk us through which of these sort of adjacent business areas actually has the potential to be a meaningful profit pool in the future?

偉大的。里德，也許只是在你身上停留一分鐘。在上次財報電話會議上，您談到視訊串流媒體是主要利潤池，隨著時間的推移，支援利潤池可能會縮小。在過去的幾個月裡，您在遊戲和播客領域招募了一些關鍵人員。您已經開設了一家線上商店。我相信您已經擴大了與 Shonda Rhimes 的合作範圍，將現場娛樂納入其中。您能告訴我們哪些相鄰的業務領域實際上有潛力在未來成為有意義的利潤池嗎？

Well, I would say none of them. That is they're not designed to be because -- but I'll draw 2 -- a distinction. There's things that our consumers love it in our service. So Shonda Rhimes' future work, we're very confident of. Video gaming, we're pushing on that, and that will be part of our service, so unscripted, all those things. So think of that as making the core service better. So lots of investment but not a separate profit pool. It's enhancing the big service that we have.

好吧，我想說沒有一個。也就是說，它們的設計目的不是為了——但我會畫出 2——一個區別。我們的服務中有些東西是我們的消費者喜歡的。所以對於Shonda Rhimes未來的工作，我們是非常有信心的。視頻遊戲，我們正在推動這一點，這將成為我們服務的一部分，所以沒有腳本，所有這些事情。因此，可以將其視為使核心服務變得更好。投資如此之多，但沒有單獨的利潤池。它正在增強我們現有的大型服務。

And then there's a number of supporting elements, consumer products, various shopping where we're really trying to grow those to support the title brands to get our conversations up around each of the titles so that the Netflix service becomes must-have. So they're not a profit pool of any material size on their own, but they are helping -- the reason we're doing them is to help the subscription service grow and be more important in people's lives, so I would say really, we're a one product company with a bunch of supporting elements that help that product be an incredible satisfaction for consumers and a monetizing engine for investors.

然後還有許多支援元素、消費產品、各種購物，我們正在努力發展這些元素來支持標題品牌，讓我們圍繞每個標題進行對話，以便 Netflix 服務成為必備服務。因此，它們本身並不是一個任何實質規模的利潤池，但它們正在提供幫助——我們這樣做的原因是幫助訂閱服務發展並在人們的生活中變得更加重要，所以我想說的是，我們是一家單一產品公司，擁有一系列支援要素，幫助該產品為消費者帶來令人難以置信的滿足感，並為投資者提供貨幣化引擎。

Great. That's helpful. Just to follow up on gaming, Greg, I'll take it to you. Very exciting to see a key hire in gaming last week. There's some more detail in the shareholder letter as well. But just bigger picture, how will you achieve the games that matter most to gamers, whether it's great content, ease of play, a network of gamers to play with? What are sort of the unique assets that Netflix brings to the table? And why will people be excited to play games on Netflix?

偉大的。這很有幫助。只是為了跟進遊戲，格雷格，我會把它帶給你。上週看到遊戲領域的一位重要員工招聘，非常令人興奮。股東信中也提供了更多細節。但從更大的角度來看，您將如何實現對遊戲玩家最重要的遊戲，無論是精彩的內容、易於玩的遊戲還是可供玩的遊戲玩家網路？ Netflix 帶來了哪些獨特的資產？為什麼人們會對在 Netflix 上玩遊戲感到興奮？

Yes. Well, sort of picking it up where Reed left off, we really see this as an extension of the core entertainment offering that we've been focused on for the last 20 years, right? So just as we've continuously expanded the nature of our offering by adding new genres, unscripted, film, local language programming, animation, on and on, we think we have an opportunity to add gains to that offering and deliver more entertainment value to our members through that. And similar to what you've seen in that trajectory when we've added a new genre, that's what we expect will happen with games. So this is going to be -- it's a multiyear effort. We're going to start relatively small. We'll learn. We'll grow. We'll refocus our investment based on what we see as working, and we'll just continuously improve based on what our members are telling us is working.

是的。好吧，從 Reed 停下來的地方開始，我們確實將其視為過去 20 年來我們一直關注的核心娛樂產品的延伸，對嗎？因此，正如我們透過添加新的類型、無腳本、電影、本地語言節目、動畫等不斷擴展我們產品的性質一樣，我們認為我們有機會增加該產品的收益，並為觀眾提供更多的娛樂價值。我們的成員通過這一點。與您在添加新類型時所看到的軌跡類似，這就是我們期望遊戲會發生的情況。所以這將是——這是一項多年的努力。我們將從相對較小的規模開始。我們會學習的。我們會成長。我們將根據我們認為有效的內容重新調整投資重點，並且我們將根據會員告訴我們的有效內容不斷改進。

But I'm really excited about a bunch of different ways that I think that we can provide an offering here that is differentiated from what's out there already. And the first of those is really about the IP that we create. We are in the business of making these amazing worlds and great storylines and incredible characters. And we know the fans of those stories want to go deeper. They want to engage further. They actually want to direct a little bit where their energy goes. And what's great about interactive is, first of all, you can provide universes that just provide really significant amount of time that people can engage in and explore. They can also provide a little bit of intentionality. Where do they want to explore? What characters? What parts of the world? What parts of the time lines? There's just a lot of exciting things that I think we can do in that space.

但我對多種不同的方式感到非常興奮，我認為我們可以在這裡提供與現有產品不同的產品。第一個實際上是關於我們創建的智慧財產權。我們致力於創造這些令人驚嘆的世界、偉大的故事情節和令人難以置信的角色。我們知道這些故事的粉絲想要更深入地了解。他們希望進一步參與。他們實際上想稍微引導一下他們的能量去向。互動的好處在於，首先，你可以提供一個宇宙，為人們提供大量的時間來參與和探索。他們還可以提供一點意向性。他們想去哪裡探索？什麼人物？世界哪些地區？時間軸由哪些部分組成？我認為我們可以在這個領域做很多令人興奮的事情。

And we also feel that our subscription model yields some opportunities to focus on a set of game experiences that are currently underserved by the sort of dominant monetization models and games. We don't have to think about ads. We don't have to think about in-game purchases or other monetization. We don't have to think about per-title purchases. Really, we can do what we've been doing on the movie and series side, which is just hyper laser-focused on delivering the most entertaining game experiences that we can't. So we're finding that many game developers really like that concept and that focus and this idea of being able to put all of their creative energy into just great gameplay and not having to worry about those other considerations that they have typically had to trade off with just making compelling games. So those are some of the core things that we're excited about and think that can make this effort for us special even in the world of games.

我們也認為，我們的訂閱模式提供了一些專注於一系列遊戲體驗的機會，而這些體驗目前尚未得到主流貨幣化模式和遊戲的服務。我們不必考慮廣告。我們不必考慮遊戲內購買或其他貨幣化。我們不必考慮按標題購買。事實上，我們可以做我們在電影和電視劇方面一直在做的事情，這只是高度專注於提供我們無法做到的最有趣的遊戲體驗。因此，我們發現許多遊戲開發者真的很喜歡這個概念、專注力和想法，即能夠將他們所有的創造力投入到出色的遊戲玩法中，而不必擔心他們通常不得不權衡的其他考慮因素只是製作引人入勝的遊戲。因此，這些是我們感到興奮的一些核心事情，並認為即使在遊戲世界中，這些事情也可以使我們的努力變得特別。

That's super helpful. I've always known this management team to take an incrementalist approach on these things while also having a well-informed thesis on the long term and how things will play out. So if you can articulate it, what is sort of your long-term thesis on gaming? And as -- starting with mobile and sort of a content vertical strategy, is that sort of a starting point? Or is that an ending point? And do you see yourself as a platform over time? Do you see gamers coming to the TV to play? What is sort of the long-term thesis of what this could evolve into?

這非常有幫助。我一直知道這個管理團隊在這些事情上採取漸進主義的方法，同時也對長期以及事情將如何發展有一個消息靈通的論文。那麼，如果您能清楚地表達出來，您關於遊戲的長期論文是什麼？從行動和內容垂直策略開始，這是一個起點嗎？或者說這是一個終點？隨著時間的推移，您是否將自己視為一個平台？您看到遊戲玩家來到電視前玩遊戲嗎？這可能會演變成什麼樣的長期論點？

Yes. And just -- I'll take it from the platform angle first and sort of maybe widen that view. But we think mobile is a great platform for games. Clearly, it's very mature. It's got great enabling technology, tools, a great developer community, and the vast majority of our members have phones that are capable of great gameplay experiences. So it sort of checks all of those boxes.

是的。只是──我會先從平台的角度來看，或許可以拓寬這個視角。但我們認為行動裝置是一個很棒的遊戲平台。顯然，它已經非常成熟了。它擁有出色的支援技術、工具和出色的開發者社區，而且我們的絕大多數會員都擁有能夠提供出色遊戲體驗的手機。所以它會檢查所有這些框。

And so it'll be a primary focus for us to deliver those experiences, but ultimately, we see all of the devices that we currently serve as candidates for some kind of game experience. We've actually been delivering lighter-weight interactive experiences on TVs and TV connected devices for some time. And you can call those games, you can call them interactive experiences, but obviously, they all exist on a spectrum.

因此，這將是我們提供這些體驗的主要焦點，但最終，我們看到我們目前提供的所有設備都可以作為某種遊戲體驗的候選設備。實際上，我們在電視和電視連接設備上提供更輕量級的互動體驗已經有一段時間了。你可以稱之為遊戲，你可以稱之為互動體驗，但顯然，它們都存在於一個範圍內。

And we're going to keep innovating in that space, and we feel like there's a rich opportunity to continue to deliver and advance the technical capability to improve the quality of game experiences we can deliver across the range of devices. And then we want to -- we'll be very sort of experimental and try a lot of things in this space. A lot of what we have to do right now is just focus on learning. And you mentioned that sort of incrementalist approach. A lot of this is really try and maximize the learning velocity is what we would say.

我們將在該領域不斷創新，我們認為有很多機會繼續提供和提高技術能力，以提高我們可以在各種設備上提供的遊戲體驗的品質。然後我們想要——我們將進行非常實驗性的嘗試，並在這個領域嘗試很多東西。我們現在要做的很多事情就是專注於學習。你提到了那種漸進主義的方法。我們會說，其中很多都是在嘗試最大化學習速度。

So we're going to try a bunch of different games through a variety of different mechanisms to see what's really working for our members. Part of that will be games that extend our IP. We think that's a really rich, rich space, so that's very much part of our long-term thesis. But also, we'll do things where we try stand-alone games. We feel like, ultimately, this -- the success of this initiative is about great games fundamentally, and those can come from a variety of different sources. Maybe someday, we'll see a game that spawns a film or a series. That would be an amazing place to get to and really see the rich interplay between these sort of different forms of entertainment.

因此，我們將透過各種不同的機制嘗試一系列不同的遊戲，看看什麼對我們的會員真正有效。其中一部分將是擴展我們智慧財產權的遊戲。我們認為這是一個非常豐富的空間，所以這是我們長期論文的重要組成部分。而且，我們也會嘗試獨立遊戲。我們覺得，最終，這項措施的成功從根本上講是關於偉大的遊戲，而這些遊戲可以來自各種不同的來源。也許有一天，我們會看到一款衍生出電影或連續劇的遊戲。那將是一個令人驚嘆的地方，可以真正看到這些不同形式的娛樂之間豐富的相互作用。

We'll also do licensing because we -- just as we've done in that sort of other genre expansion, it's a great way to increase the volume of the offering that we have at the start to learn more quickly. And then as our internal production sort of scales, we can focus the energy on what we're learning in that regard.

我們還將進行許可，因為就像我們在其他類型的擴充中所做的那樣，這是增加產品數量的好方法，我們在一開始就可以更快地學習。然後，隨著我們內部生產規模的擴大，我們可以將精力集中在我們正在這方面學習的內容上。

So broadly, we think, as you said, there is a big, big prize here, and our job is really to sort of be very focused and deliberate about what we're going after that maximizes the learning value, iterate that continuous improvement approach. And we feel that, that's yielded really big results for us as we followed that sort of technique and all the kind of genre expansions we've done around the service.

總的來說，我們認為，正如您所說，這裡有一個非常非常大的獎項，我們的工作實際上是非常專注和深思熟慮我們要追求的目標，以最大限度地提高學習價值，迭代持續改進方法。我們認為，當我們遵循這種技術以及我們圍繞服務所做的所有類型擴展時，這為我們帶來了非常大的成果。

And is the financial success of this over time, should we think about that as higher ARPU for the Netflix service? Or is there a stand-alone sort of financial success here, you think, over a very long period of time if you're successful?

隨著時間的推移，這種做法在財務上會取得成功嗎？我們是否應該將其視為 Netflix 服務的 ARPU 更高？或者，您認為，如果您成功了，那麼在很長一段時間內，這裡是否存在著一種獨立的財務成功？

I'm not going to guess it to very, very long term, but we're really thinking about this as a core part of our subscription offering. And so we measure it very much like we do around the success of adding incremental movies or adding incremental series, which is that, ultimately, those are about like being compelling to members, having them engage and talk about it, having that be part of the social conversation that's out there.

我不會猜測它會持續很長時間，但我們確實將其視為我們訂閱服務的核心部分。因此，我們衡量它的方式非常類似於我們圍繞添加增量電影或添加增量系列的成功所做的衡量，也就是說，最終，這些就像對會員有吸引力，讓他們參與並談論它，讓其成為會員的一部分。那裡的社交對話。

We see those benefits in retention. Obviously, if we're delivering more value there, then members stay with us longer. We see those values in acquisition as well because if there's a great game that lots of people are talking about to their friends, their colleagues, their family, then that's a source of acquisition for us as well.

我們在保留方面看到了這些好處。顯然，如果我們在那裡提供更多價值，那麼會員會在我們這裡待得更久。我們也在收購中看到了這些價值，因為如果有一款很棒的遊戲，很多人都在與他們的朋友、同事、家人談論，那麼這也是我們收購的一個來源。

Great. That's super helpful. Maybe switching gears to another content vertical, sports, which comes up a lot. Ted, you haven't historically been keen on buying sports rights and that may have been the right call given the cost escalation we've seen there. But you have had a lot of success with sports-related programming like the Michael Jordan documentary, the F1 series. Do you see Netflix becoming sort of the key destination for sports-related content over time? And have you been thinking news and analysis? Or is there sort of a limit to what you can do without the underlying rights?

偉大的。這非常有幫助。也許會切換到另一個垂直內容，體育，這會出現很多。特德，您歷來並不熱衷於購買體育賽事轉播權，考慮到我們看到的成本上升，這可能是正確的選擇。但您在體育相關節目方面取得了很大成功，例如麥可喬丹紀錄片《F1 系列》。隨著時間的推移，您是否認為 Netflix 會成為體育相關內容的主要目的地？您是否一直在思考新聞和分析？或者，如果沒有基本權利，您可以做的事情是否受到某種限制？

Look, I think we've -- you've pointed it out, but our success with the sports-adjacent properties, like the F1 Drive to Survive, Deaf U and certainly the Michael Jordan doc, those are all examples, I think, of the platform and what it can do to build enthusiasm on what is already viewed to be an enormous business. Drive To Survive expanded the audience for Formula 1 racing pretty dramatically, in both in live ticket sales and TV ratings and merchandise sales, all those things. And I think that, that can be applied as long as the storytelling is great.

聽著，我想我們已經——你已經指出了這一點，但是我們在體育相關產品上取得的成功，比如《F1 Drive to Survive》、《Deaf U》，當然還有邁克爾·喬丹醫生，我認為這些都是例子，該平台的簡介以及它可以採取哪些措施來激發人們對這個已經被視為龐大業務的熱情。 《Drive To Survive》在現場門票銷售、電視收視率和商品銷售等方面大大擴大了一級方程式賽車的受眾群體。我認為，只要講故事很棒，就可以應用這一點。

So what's good about this for us is that we could apply those same kind of creative excellence to the storytelling behind those sports, the personalities behind those sports, the drama that happens off camera. And fans, not only deep fans are compelled to see more but also can bring new folks into the sport.

因此，這對我們來說有好處的是，我們可以將同樣的卓越創意應用到這些運動背後的故事、這些運動背後的人物以及鏡頭外發生的戲劇中。而球迷，不僅是鐵桿球迷被迫觀看更多比賽，而且還可以將新人帶入這項運動。

So we think it's pretty exciting. We think it's -- we'll continue to explore it. We have this incredible documentary on around Naomi Osaka that's -- just came out this week. That's another example of this that can really broaden the fandom for the tennis world, particularly going into this exciting period of the Olympics.

所以我們認為這非常令人興奮。我們認為——我們將繼續探索它。我們有一部關於大阪娜歐米的精彩紀錄片，本週剛上映。這是另一個可以真正擴大網球界粉絲群的例子，特別是在奧運這個激動人心的時期。

Outside of the big American sports, football and basketball, where we've seen a lot of the cost escalation, are there more niche sports or sports in international markets where you feel like there might actually be a good ROI on owning the live air rights?

除了美國的大型運動、足球和籃球之外，我們已經看到了很多成本上升，國際市場上是否還有更多的小眾體育項目或您認為擁有直播轉播權實際上可能會帶來良好投資回報率的體育項目？

Look, I don't know that those sports suffer from being underdistributed, so I don't know that we would bring that much to them. And just to be clear, I've reiterated this a lot, but I'm not saying we'll never say never on sports. It's just what is the best use of about $10 billion. And I think that's what it's going to cost to invest meaningfully in big league sports. And that pricing has only gone up since I started saying that, so I believe that, that's likely to hold.

聽著，我不知道這些體育項目因分配不足而受到影響，所以我不知道我們會為他們帶來這麼多。需要明確的是，我已經多次重申了這一點，但我並不是說我們永遠不會在運動上說永遠。這正是大約100億美元的最佳用途。我認為這就是對大聯盟體育進行有意義的投資所需的成本。自從我開始這麼說以來，價格一直在上漲，所以我相信，這可能會持續下去。

But again, I don't think it's because those other sports are niche because they're underdistributed and that we could bring a lot to them. Our fundamental product is on demand and advertising free, and sports tends to be live and packed with advertising. So there's not a lot of natural synergies in that way, except for it happens in television. So when it becomes the best use of that next tranche of investment, we definitely would be open to it.

但同樣，我不認為這是因為其他運動是小眾的，因為它們分佈不足，而我們可以為它們帶來很多東西。我們的基本產品是隨選且無廣告，而體育賽事往往是現場直播且充滿廣告。因此，除了電視之外，這種方式並沒有太多自然的協同作用。因此，當它成為下一批投資的最佳用途時，我們肯定會對此持開放態度。

Do you see any merit in what Amazon is doing in sports?

您認為亞馬遜在體育領域所做的事情有什麼優點嗎？

I don't know particularly what they're -- I mean I know -- as a watcher, I know what they're doing, but I don't -- I'm not sure exactly what -- if they're looking for the same thing from their content spend that we are.

我不知道他們具體是什麼——我的意思是我知道——作為一個觀察者，我知道他們在做什麼，但我不——我不確定到底是什麼——如果他們是從他們的內容支出中尋找與我們相同的東西。

Yes. That's helpful. Reed, switching gears to you. You wrote in your book about farming for dissent inside the organization on strategic decisions, which I thought was a really interesting chapter of the book. What would you say are some of the biggest debates inside Netflix today as it relates to strategy?

是的。這很有幫助。里德，換檔給你了。你在書中寫到了關於組織內部策略決策的異議的農業，我認為這是書中非常有趣的一章。您認為 Netflix 內部目前與策略相關的最大爭論是什麼？

I'm a little careful on that relative to competition because most of them -- about how do we outfox Disney, so to speak, and deliver amazing entertainment. So that would be the -- but if we do it in hindsight, we talked about video games for several years, writing up the pros and cons of the timing of entry. That has properties like film that you can own the IP. You're going to have these long franchises and very positive for us, kind of industry-structure-wise, if we can master the skill set. And so really, it came down to us thinking that, that incremental money to fund games made sense relative to our other content investments. So that would be the kind of process that we go through.

相對於競爭，我對此有點謹慎，因為大多數競爭都是關於我們如何智勝迪士尼，可以這麼說，並提供令人驚嘆的娛樂。所以這就是——但如果我們事後看來，我們談論電子遊戲好幾年了，寫下了進入時機的利弊。它具有像電影一樣的屬性，您可以擁有 IP。如果我們能夠掌握這些技能，你將擁有這些長期的特許經營權，並且對我們來說非常積極，從行業結構的角度來看。事實上，我們認為，相對於我們的其他內容投資，為遊戲提供增量資金是有意義的。這就是我們要經歷的過程。

I think other healthy way to look at it, Reed, might be, in hindsight, almost everything that we've done, which has turned out well, also came with a very hearty debate period with people with very good opposing positions on why we should or shouldn't do it. And I'd say that's been true of every expansion we've taken on.

我認為另一種健康的看待方式，里德，事後看來，我們所做的幾乎所有事情，結果都很好，也伴隨著一場非常熱烈的辯論，與那些持非常反對立場的人討論為什麼我們要這樣做。應該或不應該這樣做。我想說，我們進行的每一次擴充都是如此。

Maybe we have time for 2 last questions, please.

也許我們有時間回答最後兩個問題。

Great. Spence, I'll turn it to capital allocation. It's very exciting that we're on the cusp of achieving positive free cash flow. So a couple of questions on that. First, what's the rationale for keeping debt -- gross debt at sort of the $10 billion to $15 billion range while free cash flow grows over the next few years?

偉大的。斯彭斯，我將把它轉向資本配置。非常令人興奮的是，我們即將實現正自由現金流。有幾個問題。首先，在未來幾年自由現金流成長的情況下，將債務總額維持在 100 億至 150 億美元之間的理由是什麼？

Yes. They're similar to our, I guess, our profit margin growth. There's not like a pure science to it, but what we viewed as we want to maintain some level of leverage in the marketplace because we want the familiarity, excuse me, with the capital markets should we need access to capital over time. So that's why we talk about that $10 billion to $15 billion of leverage.

是的。我想它們與我們的利潤率成長類似。這不像是純粹的科學，但我們認為我們希望在市場上保持一定程度的槓桿作用，因為我們希望熟悉資本市場，如果我們需要隨著時間的推移獲得資本的話。這就是我們談論 100 億至 150 億美元槓桿的原因。

But again, there's not a perfect science. So what's most important to us in terms of our capital allocation strategy, again, is to invest strategically in the business. So that is our first priority. That's what hopefully you're hearing in terms of our investment into film, into television, extension into video games and hopefully, other content categories over time in that kind of mission or objective to entertain the world.

但同樣，沒有完美的科學。因此，就我們的資本配置策略而言，對我們來說最重要的是對業務進行策略性投資。所以這是我們的首要任務。希望您聽到的就是我們對電影、電視、電玩的投資，以及隨著時間的推移對其他內容類別的投資，以實現娛樂世界的使命或目標。

But as we have excess cash, we will return it to shareholders occasionally. That's why we started the share repurchase program. We repurchased 0.5 billion of shares in this last quarter in Q2. It's not -- that there's a fixed amount that we're going to repurchase every quarter. That's really after we've satisfied all of those other strategic objectives. And then we'll kind of take it from there, but we have a $5 billion share repurchase authorization. We will maintain some debt in the capital markets, but we've significantly delevered. I think our leverage is down to about 2.5x debt to EBITDA, which was a bit above 5x not too long ago. And we think it's important to have the flexibility in our balance sheet to invest into growth while being kind of prudent and responsible with our capital allocation. I don't know, Spencer, maybe you would add to it. But we talk a lot about this topic.

但由於我們有多餘的現金，我們偶爾會將其回饋給股東。這就是我們啟動股票回購計畫的原因。我們在第二季最後一個季度回購了 5 億股股票。我們每季回購的金額並不是固定的。那是在我們滿足所有其他戰略目標之後。然後我們會從那裡拿走它，但我們有 50 億美元的股票回購授權。我們將在資本市場上保留一些債務，但我們已經大幅去槓桿化。我認為我們的槓桿率已降至 EBITDA 債務的 2.5 倍左右，不久前該數字略高於 5 倍。我們認為，重要的是要在資產負債表上保持靈活性，以投資於成長，同時對我們的資本配置保持謹慎和負責。我不知道，史賓塞，也許你會補充一下。但我們對這個話題談了很多。

No, I think you nailed it, Spence.

不，我認為你做到了，斯彭斯。

And just related to that, I mean your appetite for M&A has historically been pretty low. I'm wondering if that changes at all as you explore gaming or perhaps other areas. In your core business, you haven't seemed as interested in some of the traditional assets that have been in the market, like MGM, for example. What are the characteristics that make a good acquisition for you?

與此相關的是，我的意思是，你們對併購的興趣歷來都很低。我想知道當你探索遊戲或其他領域時，這種情況是否會改變。在您的核心業務中，您似乎對市場上的一些傳統資產（例如米高梅）不那麼感興趣。哪些特色適合您進行一次良好的收購？

Well, Spencer runs that group for us. I'll let Spencer answer, and I can chime in.

好吧，史賓塞為我們管理這個小組。我會讓史賓賽回答，我可以插嘴。

Thanks, Spence. And Nidhi, it's a good question. So I guess a couple of things without speaking towards any specific opportunities. I would say, as a company, we look at many different ways to help accelerate the growth in our business, including M&A. So you should assume we look at many, many different things. And we've said in the past that we're open to content assets that can help accelerate our growth, things like intellectual property that we can develop into original series and movies.

謝謝，史賓塞。 Nidhi，這是一個很好的問題。所以我猜想了一些事情，但沒有談到任何具體的機會。我想說，作為一家公司，我們會考慮許多不同的方式來幫助加速我們的業務成長，包括併購。所以你應該假設我們關注很多很多不同的事情。我們過去曾說過，我們對有助於加速我們成長的內容資產持開放態度，例如我們可以將其開發成原創系列和電影的智慧財產權。

In addition, film and TV libraries could be interesting as well. We'll see on the gaming side. That being said, we are mindful of a couple of things. First of all, our encumbrances, for example, which if some of these content assets are heavily encumbered and limit our ability to use them on Netflix, then they're of limited value to us since our top priority is to grow the core Netflix business.

此外，電影和電視圖書館也可能很有趣。我們將在遊戲方面拭目以待。話雖這麼說，我們要注意幾件事。首先，我們的負擔，例如，如果其中一些內容資產受到嚴重阻礙並限制我們在 Netflix 上使用它們的能力，那麼它們對我們的價值就有限，因為我們的首要任務是發展核心 Netflix 業務。

Secondly, our opportunity costs and trade-offs. So as we evaluate M&A, we always think about if we bought company X or asset X for Y dollars, what's the alternative use of Y dollars and which is best for the company. So hopefully, that gives you a little bit of a framework for how we think about M&A.

其次，我們的機會成本和權衡。因此，當我們評估併購時，我們總是會思考，如果我們用 Y 美元購買 X 公司或 X 資產，Y 美元的替代用途是什麼以及哪種對公司最有利。希望這能為您提供一些關於我們如何看待併購的框架。

Yes. The key is it has to accelerate our strategy with low distraction cost, and so we're pretty picky.

是的。關鍵在於它必須以較低的干擾成本加速我們的策略，所以我們非常挑剔。

It's got to be something that's in the -- smack right in the middle of the strategic core of what we're doing.

它必須是我們正在做的事情的戰略核心的正中間的東西。

I mean I guess with that backdrop, I mean, is there any reason to think the majority of free cash flow wouldn't be used for buybacks in the future?

我的意思是，我想在這種背景下，是否有任何理由認為大部分自由現金流將來不會用於回購？

Well, we're getting ahead of ourselves a little bit, but it's certainly something we've contemplated as to why we have the $5 billion authorization. But that'll be -- I kind of look at that as a high-class problem. We've guided to cash flow roughly breakeven for this year. So let's get through this year and kind of look at how we're tracking next year. I'm excited for getting hopefully past this nearly what will then be almost a 2-year global pandemic and a really kind of full content slate and hopefully, a more normalized world and then we can worry about what to do with our excess cash.

好吧，我們有點超前了，但這確實是我們考慮過為什麼我們會獲得 50 億美元授權的原因。但這是——我認為這是一個高級問題。我們預計今年的現金流大致達到損益兩平。讓我們回顧一下今年，看看明年我們的進展如何。我很高興能夠度過這場幾乎將持續兩年的全球大流行病，並有一個真正完整的內容清單，並希望有一個更加正常化的世界，然後我們就可以擔心如何處理我們多餘的現金。

It's good problem to have.

有這個問題是個好問題。

Here you go. Well, thanks, Nidhi. Thank you so much for doing this again with us. I just want to say we're really happy with the quarter. We're happy with the programming. We're happy in this very complicated time both in the world and in the business to be growing subscribers and revenue. This is a big story mostly about how the world is in love with streaming. And when it comes to watching your favorite show, your favorite film, it's more likely to be happening on streaming than ever before, and it's still just scratching the surface as to the potential for the business.

幹得好。嗯，謝謝，尼迪。非常感謝您再次與我們合作。我只想說我們對這個季度非常滿意。我們對節目安排很滿意。我們很高興在這個非常複雜的時期，無論是在世界上還是在商業上，我們的訂閱者和收入都在成長。這是一個大故事，主要講述世界如何愛上串流媒體。當談到觀看你最喜歡的節目、你最喜歡的電影時，它比以往任何時候都更有可能發生在串流媒體上，而對於這項業務的潛力來說，這仍然只是冰山一角。

And while everybody else is trying to figure out how to unwind businesses and restructure businesses and put together enormous populations of employees, we're focused on 3 things. I know we're spending about 1,000 plates, but we're really focused on our 3 things, which is our content, our choosing and driving conversation around the world. And with that, we're really confident in our team to continue to drive that and drive us to continued success. So thank you.

當其他人都在試圖弄清楚如何解散業務、重組業務以及如何整合大量員工時，我們專注於三件事。我知道我們花了大約 1,000 個盤子，但我們真正專注於我們的三件事，即我們的內容、我們的選擇以及推動世界各地的對話。因此，我們對我們的團隊繼續推動這一目標並推動我們不斷取得成功充滿信心。所以謝謝。