This story analyses a Kaggle dataset of 8,807 Netflix titles available as of late 2021. Netflix was founded in 1997 and began streaming in 2007. This dataset is a snapshot — not a complete history.
In 2015, Netflix added 82 titles to its library. The year before, it was 24. Growth was slow and mostly American.
Then 2016 happened. Netflix launched in 130 new countries simultaneously. That year, 429 titles were added — more than five times the previous year.
In 2019, Netflix added 2,016 titles in a single year. That is a 24x jump from 2015. No streaming platform had grown its library at this pace before.
By late 2021 — when this dataset ends — the cumulative library had crossed 8,800 titles from 86 countries.
In 2013, 91% of titles added to Netflix came from the United States. The library was almost entirely American.
By 2016 — the year of global expansion — the US share had dropped to 42%. For the first time, the rest of the world contributed more titles than America.
By 2018, the US share stabilised around 30 to 38%. It has held there since. America remains the single largest contributor — but no longer dominates.
The United States accounts for 3,211 titles in this dataset — nearly a third of the entire library. The next largest is India with 1,008 titles.
The United States, India, and the United Kingdom account for more than half of all titles in this dataset. But 83 other countries contribute the rest — each with a distinct content profile.
India brought Bollywood to Netflix. Of India's 1,008 titles in this dataset, 927 are movies. Just 81 are TV shows. The content strategy was clear — export the existing film industry.
South Korea took the opposite approach. Of its 211 titles, 164 are TV shows — Korean dramas, crime series, romantic shows. Only 47 are films.
India has five times more titles than Korea on this platform. But Korea's cultural footprint — Squid Game, Money Heist style impact — reached far beyond its volume.
The waffle charts show the split clearly. Each square is 1% of that country's total Netflix content. The difference in strategy is immediate.
In 2016, adult-rated content — TV-MA and R-rated — made up 41% of all titles added to Netflix that year.
By 2019, that share had climbed to 47%. Nearly half of everything added in that year was rated for adults only.
Kids content stayed flat in absolute terms. Teen-rated content (TV-14, PG-13) doubled in volume from 2016 to 2019 but its share remained similar as total additions grew.
This was not a family platform being built. The stacked chart shows adult content consistently taking the largest share across every year from 2016 to 2021.
From 2 titles in 2008 to 8,807 by 2021. From 91% American to 36%. From mythology-free to adult-dominant. Every number in this dataset is a decision Netflix made about which audience to serve next.
This dataset ends in 2021. What happened after — the password-sharing crackdown, ad-supported tiers, regional cancellations — is a different story, and a different dataset.
