If You Invested In Netflix When It Was Still a DVD Rental Service, Here’s How Much You’d Have Today
Written by
Vance Cariaga
Edited by
Jenna Klaverweiden
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When it comes to adapting to different technologies and consumer patterns, few companies have succeeded as well as Netflix (NFLX) — and hardly any have been bigger winners on Wall Street.
If you had invested $1,000 in Netflix in its earliest incarnation and held on to that investment, then you would’ve been sitting on hundreds of thousands of dollars right now.
Also see whether now is a good time to invest in Netflix, according to experts.
Streaming Pioneer
The Los Gatos, California-based streaming giant started out in 1998 as a mail-order DVD company. That put it in direct competition with Blockbuster, which at the time was the dominant DVD retailer via its chain of thousands of stores.
But while Blockbuster was slow to adapt to the next decade’s streaming trend, Netflix quickly spotted the opportunity. It began offering streaming services in January 2007 and immediately gained first-mover advantage over the competition.
Today, Netflix is one of the stock market’s all-time success stories, with a market cap of over $517 billion and more than 300 million subscribers worldwide. Meanwhile, Blockbuster went bankrupt in 2010 and currently has one remaining store, located in Bend, Oregon.
How Much Would Your Netflix Investment Be Worth Now?
If you bought Netflix shares in December 2006 — when it was still a DVD rental company — you made a very smart move.
Here’s a look at how much money you would have now with an initial $1,000 investment, before Netflix branched out into streaming services. The 2006 price shown below was adjusted from the original price to reflect a 7-for-1 stock split in July 2015.
- Closing price on Dec. 31, 2006: $3.69 per share
- Number of shares with a $1,000 investment: 271
- Closing price on Sept. 11, 2025: $1,203.50 per share
- Current value of initial investment: $326,148
- Gain/loss: 32,515%
Because Netflix does not pay dividends to shareholders, the above values represent the actual gain from your initial investment. A stock market gain of more than 32,500% in less than 20 years is phenomenal no matter how you slice and dice it.
To put that gain in context, consider that over the same time period, the S&P 500 has risen by about 364%. The Dow has gained about 270%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq (where Netflix trades) has increased roughly 813%.
Editor’s note: All stock figures were sourced from Yahoo Finance.
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