Netflix capped last year with another solid financial performance despite slowing subscriber growth that underscored the importance of its contested $72 billion bid to take over Warner Bros.’ movie studio and slot HBO Max into its video streaming line-up.
The fourth-quarter results announced Tuesday eclipsed the projections of stock market analysts, but Netflix's report also noted that the video service ended the year with more than 325 million worldwide subscribers, a figure indicating it has added about 23 million subscribers since 2024.
The 2025 subscriber increase marked a dramatic slowdown from the 41 million picked up during 2024, amplifying investor worries that Netflix's growth has peaked since the 2022 introduction of a low-priced, advertising-supported version of its service that triggered a massive surge in subscribers.
Management also forecast a profit for the January-March period that was below analysts' predictions and announced Netflix would stop buying back its own stock while trying to complete the Warner Bros' deal. Even though its ad sales are expected to double, Netflix also projected its revenue growth would taper off from 16% in 2025 to 12% to 14% this year.
“Overall, this points to a challenging start to the year," said Investing.com analyst Thomas Monteiro.
Netflix's shares sank nearly 5% in extended trading, even though its profit and revenue for the past quarter were better than anticipated. The company earned $2.4 billion, or 56 cents per share, 29% increase from the same time in the previous year. Revenue rose 18% from the previous year to more than $12 billion.
The results almost seemed like a footnote next to the stakes involved in Netflix’s bidding war to buy Warner Bros. Discovery .
The battle took another turn earlier Tuesday when Netflix converted its original offer that included a stock component into an all-cash deal in hopes of simplifying the process and making it easier for Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders to resist Paramount’s overtures.
Although Warner Bros. has reiterated its commitment to getting the Netflix deal done, Paramount isn’t showing any signs of backing down and could still sweeten its counteroffer to turn up the heat another notch.
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos seemed to send a warning shot across Paramount's bow during a Tuesday conference call as he recalled fending off rivals such as Walmart and the now-vanquished Blockbuster video chain during the company's days as a DVD-by-mail rental service. “We are no strangers to competition and we are now strangers to change,” Sarandos said.
Besides having to fend off Paramount, Netflix will also need to persuade U.S. regulators that adding HBO to a streaming service that has the most subscribers in the country won’t stifle competition and drive up prices that have already been rising in recent years.
The uncertainty has been reflected in Netflix’s stock price, which has fallen by20% since its agreement with Warner Bros. Discovery was unveiled last month. It’s a cloud likely to hang over Netflix through most of this year because the company doesn't expect to complete its purchase until Warner Bros. Discovery spins off its cable TV business — a process expected to take six to nine months.
“We are energized as ever to achieve our mission to entertain the world,” Sarandos said.
FILE - A Netflix sign is displayed atop a building in Los Angeles, on Dec. 18, 2025, with the Hollywood sign in the distance. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)
ADAMUZ, Spain (AP) — A Barcelona commuter train crashed Tuesday after a retaining wall fell onto the tracks, Spanish regional authorities said, killing one person and injuring 15 others.
The crash in Catalonia in northeastern Spain came just two days after a separate deadly train collision killed at least 42 people in the country's south and injured dozens more.
Emergency workers Tuesday were still searching for more victims in the wreckage from Sunday's deadly train accident that took place some 800 kilometers (497 miles) away as the nation began three days of mourning.
Emergency services in Catalonia said of the 15 people affected in Tuesday's crash, three were seriously injured. Five others were in less serious condition. Emergency services said 11 ambulances had been sent to the site of the crash.
The commuter train crashed near the town of Gelida, located about 35 minutes outside of Barcelona.
Spain’s railway operator ADIF said the containment wall likely collapsed due to heavy rainfall that swept across the northeastern Spanish region this week.
Antonio Sanz, the regional health minister of Andalusia, where Sunday's accident occurred, told Spanish media that the official toll from the accident had risen after another corpse was discovered in a severely damaged car.
Amid the tragedy, it emerged that a 6-year-old girl survived the wreck without major injury, while her parents, brother and cousin all perished.
Fidel Sáez lost his mother in the wreck, but his two children, his brother and a nephew survived. Their trip to the capital to see musical “The Lion King” turned into a nightmare on the way home.
“My brother has been taken off respirator. He told me that it was a miracle that he is alive. He had to get the children through a window,” Sáez told national TV broadcaster TVE. “He also asked me to tell the story of our mother, how good she was."
Health authorities said 39 people remained in hospitals on Tuesday morning, while 83 people were treated and discharged.
Among them was Emil Johnson, a Swedish citizen based in Malaga who was traveling to Madrid to renew his passport.
“It was probably two, three seconds. And everything was broken,” Jonsson, sitting in a wheelchair due to bruises on his ribs and back and dressed in part of a hospital gown, told reporters. “When we crashed, I didn’t know who was alive and who was dead.”
The Sunday crash happened at 7:45 p.m. when the tail end of a train carrying 289 passengers on the route from Malaga to the capital, Madrid, derailed and crashed into an incoming train traveling from Madrid to Huelva, another southern city, according to rail operator Adif.
The front of the second train, which was carrying 184 people, took the brunt of the impact, which knocked its first two carriages off the track and down a 4-meter (13-foot) slope. Some bodies were found hundreds of meters (feet) from the crash site, according to Andalusia regional President Juanma Moreno.
Associated Press images taken Tuesday showed the remains of the first two cars of the second train, severed from the rest of the train and lying beside the tracks. Train seats had been ejected onto the rocks that provide packing under the tracks.
Further along the tracks, Civil Guard officers inspected the interior of the first train with dogs as passengers’ belongings lay scattered on the floor, according to the video distributed by authorities. The last carriage was lying on its side on the tracks, and the second-to-last carriage was leaning to one side with all its windows shattered.
Officials are continuing to investigate the causes of the accident that Puente has called “truly strange” since it occurred on a straight line and neither train was speeding.
Puente said officials had found a broken section of track that could possibly be related to the accident's origin, while insisting that is just a hypothesis and that it could take weeks to reach any conclusions.
“Now we have to determine if that is a cause or a consequence (of the derailment),” Puente told Spanish radio Cadena Ser.
At this time, “all hypotheses are open,” Grande Marlaska told a press conference. Accident investigators will analyze “the rails at the point where the derailment began and inspect the wheels" of the first train in a laboratory, he added.
The train that jumped the track belonged to the private company Iryo, while the second train belonged to Spain’s public train company, Renfe.
Iryo said in a statement Monday that its train was manufactured in 2022 and had passed a safety check on Jan. 15.
Puente and Renfe president Álvaro Fernández said that both trains were traveling well under the speed limit of 250 kph (155 mph) and “human error could be ruled out.”
The accident shook a nation that leads Europe in high-speed train mileage and takes pride in a network that is considered at the cutting edge of rail transport.
“It is undoubtedly a hard blow, and I have to work so it doesn’t affect the credibility and strength of the network,” Puente told Spanish national radio RNE on Tuesday when asked about the damage to the reputation of the rail system.
Spain’s King Felipe and Queen Letizia visited the scene of the accident, where they greeted emergency workers as well as some local residents who helped in the initial stages of the rescue. Afterwards, they went to hospital in Cordoba where many of the injured remain under care.
“We are all responsible for not looking away when the debris of a catastrophe is being cleared away," said Letizia to reporters after the visit.
Spain's Civil Guard is collecting DNA samples from family members who fear they have loved ones among the unidentified dead.
High-speed trains resumed service Tuesday from Madrid to Sevilla and Malaga, the largest cities in Andalusia, Spain’s most populous region, but passengers had to travel a stretch of the journey by buses provided by the rail service. Minister Puente said that the normal train service won’t resume until early February.
Spanish airline Iberia added more flights to southern cities until Sunday to help stranded travelers. Some bus companies also reinforced their services in the south.
Wilson reported from Barcelona, Spain. Photographer Manu Sánchez in Adamuz and AP journalist Teresa Medrano in Madrid contributed.
View of the site of a train collision in Adamuz, southern Spain, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
View of the site of a train collision in Adamuz, southern Spain, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Spain's King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia visit the site of a train collision in Adamuz, southern Spain, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026. (Joaquin Corchero/Europa Press via AP) **SPAIN OUT**
Guardia Civil officers collect evidence next to the wreckage of train cars involved in a collision in Adamuz, southern Spain, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Guardia Civil officers collect evidence next to the wreckage of train cars involved in a collision in Adamuz, southern Spain, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Guardia Civil officers collect evidence next to the wreckage of train cars involved in a collision in Adamuz, southern Spain, Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
In this grab taken from video provided by Guardia Civil, rescue workers at the scene following a high-speed train collision, in Adamuz, Spain, Monday, Jan. 19, 2026. (Guardia Civil via AP)
An injured person is transported to the makeshift hospital in the sports center in Adamuz, near Córdoba, southern Spain, Monday, Jan. 19, 2026, after a high-speed train derailed and collided with another train. (Francisco J. Olmo/Europa Press via AP)
In this grab taken from video provided by Guardia Civil, rescue workers at the scene after a high speed train collision,in Adamuz, Spain, Monday, Jan. 19, 2026. (Guardia Civil via AP)
Emergency crews work at the site of a train collision in Adamuz, southern Spain, Monday, Jan. 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Part of a wrecked train is photographed at the site of a train collision in Adamuz, southern Spain, Monday, Jan. 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
