The future of Netflix is watching multiple videos on the same screen

“We’ve got some pretty cool stuff in the lab with multi-video streams on the television screen,” he added. “We’ll see if it tests well. I’m pretty optimistic about it. But there is a ton to learn as smart TVs get better and faster as adapters like Chromecast get better. So there’s a lot of innovation on the hardware side that we’re taking advantage of.”

The shift stems from the wealth of insights Netflix is getting from how and what its 65 million subscribers are watching. Its user interface and programming have been the key beneficiaries of this approach, which Hastings dubbed its “big data work” and the business is carefully evolving this approach moving forward.

The investments are geared to foster a more personalised viewing experience, which in turn Netflix can market as more premium. Despite topping 65 million users in its latest quarter, the cost of third-party content continues to sap its profits with the cost 4.6 times its net revenue of $7.7bn. Although Hastings said there were no immediate plans to inflate prices in its biggest market the US, he did concede that prices could rise over the next decade as it introduced more services.

“Over the last year, we’ve raise average subscription price (ASP) about 5 per cent. We’d like to keep that moving so we’ll continue to have incentives for people to move up in the plans as suits their usage pattern but we want to take it very slow,” said Hastings. “There’s no reason to be disruptive. It’s really focused on going very steady, very slow and over the next decade. I think we’ll be able have more and more content and add more value, and then be able to price that appropriately.”

It reflects Hastings confidence in the service’s slow but steady approach to mastering the content monetisation game. The popularity of recent additions such as “Daredevil” and “Orange is the New Black” helped lift its subscriber base passed analysts’ forecasts to 65.6 million subscribers in the second quarter, compared to 50.1 million a year earlier. Domestically, its user base swelled by 900,000 to a total of 4.3 million, ahead of the 636,000 analysts had projected. Its performance was also buoyed by a successful Australia launch and the popularity of Spanish language shows.

Elsewhere this week, former Netflix data scientist Catherine Irving Neasmith, now CEO of big data consultancy Qbiz, disclosed insights into the video-streaming service’s approach to using customer insights to help propel the business.

She told attendees the company would compile statistics on users’ collective viewing patterns to assess which kind of content to purchase, and at what price, plus it also used big data analysis to help decide which performers to cast in its flagship series House of Cards.

Additionally, she also advised attendees on “data centralisation”, i.e. ensuring an organisation’s data is not kept in silos, so it can be used to isolate operational problems, plus provide “unity of purpose”.