At the end of 2010, Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes was asked about the growth of Netflix, and whether it posed a threat.
His answer: "It’s a little bit like, is the Albanian army going to take over the world? I don’t think so."
Well, the Albanian army is now winning.
On Facebook yesterday, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said, "Minor milestone: last quarter we passed HBO is subscriber revenue ($1.146B vs $1.141B). They still kick our ass in profits and Emmy's, but we are making progress. HBO rocks, and we are honored to be in the same league. (yes, I loved Silicon Valley and yes it hit a little close to home.)"
Netflix has 48 million paid subscribers, with 35.1 million in the U.S. HBO says it has 127 million subscribers worldwide, but it includes Cinemax subscribers and HBO 2, HBO Family, etc. in that number, so it's hard to get a perfect subscriber to subscriber comparison.
This chart from Quartz shows Netflix subscription revenue is beating HBO revenue:
