If You Invested $1,000 In Netflix Stock At Its IPO, Here's How Much You'd Have Today

Streaming giant Netflix Inc NFLX started as a DVD-by-mail membership service before expanding into the growing streaming market. Over the past 25 years, the company has navigated challenges and remained ahead of trends.

Here's a look back at its history and how an investment in its initial public offering (IPO) would have fared.

What Happened: Netflix ended the first quarter of 2024 with 269.60 million paid global subscribers, making the platform one of the largest globally.

Over the years, Netflix has grown its subscriber base through heavy content spending, having high-demand original programming and expanding offerings to include video games and live comedy and sports events.

Netflix was founded in 1997 and launched its website NetFlix.com on April 14, 1998. Originally known as a DVD-by-mail rental service, Netflix found itself in competition with Blockbuster and other physical movie rental chains.

Blockbuster also launched its own DVD-by-mail rental service. A battle between Netflix and Blockbuster raged on for years, before Blockbuster eventually filed for bankruptcy in 2010 due to its high level of debt.

Back in 2000, Netflix pitched a deal to be acquired by Blockbuster for $50 million. The pitch came as Netflix was among the companies feeling the effect of the dot-com market crash. Blockbuster executives are said to have laughed Netflix out of the room.

Before they pitched the company to Blockbuster for an acquisition, Netflix took a meeting with Amazon.com Inc AMZN back in 1998.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos offered $15 million to acquire Netflix, but the company turned the deal down, believing they had more growth ahead.

The co-founders of Netflix who turned down the Amazon deal are likely happy they did, as are any investors who got in on the streaming company early.

Netflix held its IPO on May 29, 2002, offering 5.5 million shares at a price of $15. Shares posted triple-digit returns for investors over the first several years.

At the time of its IPO, Netflix had around 600,00 subscribers for its DVD-by-mail rental service. In April 2023, the company ended its DVD-by-mail service.

Years later, in 2007, Netflix entered the next phase of growth by offering streaming to subscribers as part of its existing DVD rental by mail service. Eventually, the company would transition to offering streaming and mail packages separately or as bundles.

In 2012, "Lillyhammer" became the first original series to hit the Netflix streaming platform. Over the years, Netflix has released plenty of hit shows like "House of Cards," "Stranger Things," "Bridgerton," “Squid Game” and more.

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Investing $1,000 In Netflix Stock: Although investors couldn’t predict Netflix’s ascendancy as a streaming juggernaut or Blockbuster’s eventual bankruptcy, they might have backed Netflix based on their personal experience as customers or their faith in the company’s innovative vision and consistent growth.

At a price point of $15, an investor could have purchased 66.7 shares at the time of the Netflix IPO. Stock splits in 2004 (2-for-1) and 2015 (7-for-1) would have turned the $1,000 investment into 933.38 shares.

Based on a price of $556.47 for Netflix stock at the time of writing, the $1,000 investment would be worth $519,397.47 today. This represents a return of 51,839.8% for investors.

Netflix shares hit an all-time high of $691.69 on Nov. 17, 2021. The $1,000 investment would have been worth a staggering $645,609.61 at that time.

While past results don't always mean the future will be a success, Netflix remains a market leader in the streaming space and is gaining subscribers with a password-sharing crackdown and ad-supported plan launch.

This article was previously published by Benzinga and has been updated.

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