Netflix is looking better this quarter than last. And that’s a good thing, because it’s about to go to war with Apple (and its unfathomably deep pockets) as well as Disney (and its outrageously expansive archives). Both are gearing up to launch cheaper streaming services, and Netflix, which lost subscribers for the first time ever in the U.S. during the second quarter of 2019, has plenty to prove.
But dang: Investors like what they see. Netflix’s stock price initially shot up by more than 9% during after-hours trading on Wednesday after it released its earnings report for the third quarter of 2019. The company grew its streaming service by 6.8 million (net) paid subscribers—just missing the fat 7 million figure it forecasted for the quarter.
That’s a crucial miss on what has traditionally been Netflix’s most closely watched metric, but the company beat analysts’ expectations on profit, and that seems to have Wall Street stoked, at least in the short term.
Here are the key numbers:
- Domestic subscribers: up by 517,000
- International subscribers: up by 6.26 million
- Earnings per share: $1.47
- Revenue: $5.25 billion
For the next quarter, Netflix estimates it’ll bring in a modest 7.6 million (net) new subscribers globally. The company cited “new forthcoming competition” as one of the reasons it doesn’t ultimately expect to add more subscribers in 2019 than it did in 2018.
We’ll have more analysis after the earnings call later today. Stay tuned…
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