Netflix soars with 7 million more subscribers 📈📺
With 137 million subscribers, the film and series streaming company just keeps on growing.
Well above expectations: by adding 6.96 million subscribers, Netflix is riding high on Wall Street again. Shares in the film and series streaming company rose 12% after it announced its results for the last four months.
The service that delights film and TV lovers had initially expected the figure not to exceed 5.07 million, but it ended up with a pleasant (and profitable) surprise. Netflix now has 137 million members, 130 million of whom pay.
The company also announced earnings of 89 cents per share and revenue of $4 billion, while analysts had expected no more than 68 cents. Nothing but good news.
As well as the full financial report, the letter to shareholders also reveals some changes to the original content distribution strategy. Netflix draws a clear line between two kinds of original productions: those such as Orange Is the New Black, where the company has the advantage of showing them first, and others such as the huge hit Stranger Things, which it actually owns.
The original announcement reads:
"Today, we employ hundreds of people in physical production, working on a wide range of our own titles across written and unwritten series, kids and international content, standup, documentaries and films around the world. To support our efforts, we will need more production capacity; we recently announced that we have chosen Albuquerque, New Mexico, as the site of our new US production hub, and we expect to put $1 billion into production there over the next ten years and create a thousand new jobs a year. Our in-house studio is already the largest supplier of content to Netflix (in terms of spend)."
Romances and romantic comedies have been among the company's biggest hits recently, thanks to original films that have already been watched by more than 80 million users. By all accounts, "To All the Boys I've Loved Before" performed particularly well, becoming one of the most watched films ever on the service, with many users watching it more than once.
Netflix also plans to release Alfonso Cuarón's "Gravity" and "Roma" in December this year; both received glowing reviews at international film festivals. And while original titles usually have a minimal presence in cinemas, Netflix promises that "Roma" (like Paul Greengrass's "22 July") will be shown in more than a hundred cinemas around the world.
Of course, it won't be a blockbuster, but it is not bad either. In the months left until the end of 2018, the company expects to add another 9.4 million new members. If the positive trend continues, that won't be hard.
