Netflix already conquered your living room — and it wants to make sure you’re streaming on your phone, too.
On Thursday, the company rolled out a slew of mobile app updates to help you find something to watch faster and encourage streaming throughout more parts of the day. These changes build on a TV homepage redesign in 2025 that aimed to cut down decision fatigue.
The biggest change is a new “Clips” button that opens to a vertical feed of personalized clips. The Clips feature also includes genre cues, synopses, and a progress bar.
“Members are able to explore the breadth of our catalog in a more snackable and streamlined way by simply swiping through the feed,” Elizabeth Stone, Netflix’s chief product and technology officer, told Business Insider. “We’ve also made it easy to jump directly to watch titles or add titles to MyList for later.”
Netflix faced a challenge in figuring out the type of vertical video feed subscribers would like.
One important insight the streamer learned: It couldn’t just copy TikTok.
Netflix members had gotten used to the streamer’s classic rows, and on tapping to get more information before committing. In testing, a design that served people video instantly didn’t resonate. The solution was to retain a vertical feed that didn’t default to autoplay and kept the iconic rows as a scrolling option.
“As members use the Clips feature over time, and as we add more types of content to the feed, we’ll be able to further personalize the experience so the most relevant entertainment for that member surfaces at the right moment,” Stone said.
Netflix is also giving top real estate to new buttons promoting its recently added podcasts and “New and Hot,” a feed featuring coming titles that used to be at the bottom of the page.
Netflix stressed that these new mobile updates are the first in a coming series.
Later this year, Netflix plans to introduce themed collections of popular genres such as romance, action, and reality TV. It will also emphasize different forms of entertainment that might appeal to people on the go, such as podcast clips, reality TV snippets, or behind-the-scenes content.
Netflix hopes to capture more of people’s viewing time during the day, when its engagement has historically been lower. That was one of the reasons behind adding podcasts to its catalog this year.
‘Engagement time needs to improve’
Netflix has tried mobile feeds of clips before, with experiments ranging from 2021’s Fast Laughs comedy feed to the aptly named “Kids Clips.”
Nailing the mobile experience feels more pressing in the current marketplace, though.
Netflix has a wide lead over other traditional entertainment streamers like HBO Max and Disney, capturing about 9% of people’s time spent watching TV in the US. However, the time people spend on Netflix per person declined last year, per a Gabelli Funds note.
The phone is also a key to appealing to younger generations who prefer social media content over TV and movies.
Rival streamers, including Disney and Paramount, are likewise trying to level up their mobile experiences.
Jamie Meyers, a senior securities analyst at Laffer Tengler Investments — a Netflix shareholder — said a better app could help Netflix capture passive viewing that’s now happening on TikTok and YouTube.
“We think the engagement time needs to improve,” he said. “Quality is at an all-time high, pricing power’s holding up. At the same time, as they get bigger, it’s hard to grow off that base.”
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