Netflix Tops Subscriber Forecasts

LOS GATOS: Netflix exceeded its subscriber forecasts in the U.S. and internationally in Q4, with 7.05 million net new additions globally.

“This was the largest quarter of net additions in our history and was driven by strong acquisition trends in both our U.S. and international segments,” the company said in its letter to shareholders.

The platform had previously forecast 5.2 million net new additions for the quarter. In Q4 2015 Netflix added 5.59 million subs. Netflix ended the year with 93.8 million members.

Netflix reported revenues of $2.4 billion in the period, with a net profit of $66.7 million. For the year as a whole, Netflix’s global streaming revenues were $8.3 billion, reflecting a year-on-year growth of 35 percent.

In the U.S., Q4 revenues rose to $1.4 billion, with 1.93 million net additions to reach 49.43 million total members. For Q1 2017, Netflix forecasts 1.5 million net additions and $1.47 billion in revenues.

International streaming revenues hit $948 million. There were 5.12 million net additions to reach a total base of 44.37 million. The forecast for Q1 2017 is revenues of $1.04 billion and 3.7 million net additions.

In the letter to shareholders, the company noted, “We are learning rapidly how best to match content with audience tastes around the world. It is clear to us that high-quality content travels well across borders…. We continue to invest in local programming to complement our content offering and as a means to introduce new members to our global library. We are focusing on local content that travels pan-regionally or across multiple territories, such as Japanese anime and Turkish dramas.”

The platform says it will invest more than $6 billion in content in 2017, up from its $5 billion spend last year.