Netflix blew past analyst estimates to post earnings of 12 cents a share on revenue of $2.29 billion, double the 6 cents a share forecast on $2.28 billion, and added 370k000 subscribers in the U.S. despite a price hike. Netflix stock soared to a nearly 20 percent gain on the news.
Internationally, Netflixdid even better, gaining 3.2 million while 2 million was forecast, and the company said it is on track to add the same amount of subscribers in the first 9 months of this year as it did in all of 2015.
The company said its strong original content lineup such as “Stranger Things,” and “Narcos” helped push it to the revenue gain up 36 percent year over year.
While Netflix said it would pursue international localization efforts and mentioned those in Poland and Turkey, it nixed entering the Chinese market for now.
The company said, “The regulatory environment for foreign digital content services in China has become challenging,” the company said. We now plan to license content to existing online service providers in China rather than operate our own service in China in the near term. We expect revenue from this licensing will be modest.”
Netflix fans should be happy to hear the company plans to release 1,000 hours of original shows and movies in 2017, up from over 600 in 2016.
Netflix stock (NFLX) rose 19.4 percent to $118.90 a share in after hours trading.
