Reed Hastings, the co-founder of Netflix, announced that he will be stepping down as co-chief executive of Netflix on Thursday, January 19.

Hastings, 62, who co-founded the company in 1997 when Netflix delivered its subscribers movies on DVDs sent in the mail, will now become chairman.

Greg Peters, chief product and chief operating officer of the company, will be joined by Ted Sarandos as co-chief executive.

Sarandos was elevated to co-CEO in July 2020.

Announcing his resignation, Hastings said in a statement: "In the last two and a half years, I’ve increasingly delegated the management of Netflix to them."

He noted that Sarandos and Peters had dealt with the challenges of the pandemic and upheavals in the streaming industry.

"It was a baptism by fire, given Covid and recent challenges within our business," Hastings wrote.

"But they’ve both managed incredibly well, ensuring Netflix continues to improve and developing a clear path to reaccelerate our revenue and earnings growth. So the board and I believe it’s the right time to complete my succession," he added.

Hastings said he planned to work with Sarandos and Hastings as executive chairman for "many years to come".

He is one of Netflix’s largest individual shareholders, owning about 2% of the company, and has a personal fortune estimated at $3.3bn (£2.6bn) by Forbes.

"I’ll also be spending more time on philanthropy, and remain very focused on Netflix stock doing well," he wrote.

Hastings started Netflix 25 years ago with serial entrepreneur Marc Randolph.

Bn