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Between the Lines

Larry Dignan, Andrew Nusca and Rachel King

Netflix earnings: subscriptions jump as it transitions to streaming company

By | October 20, 2010, 1:55pm PDT

Netflix added more than a million subscribers last quarter - and nearly 2 million - as the company continues to morph from a DVD-rental company to “a streaming company that also offers DVD-by-mail,” company CEO Reed Hasting said. (Statement)

What that translates to is a third quarter net income if $38 million, a 26 percent jump from the year-ago quarter, or 70 cents per share, up 35 percent from last year. Revenue was $553.2 million, a 31 percent increase over the year-ago quarter. Wall Street had been expecting Netflix to report earnings of 71 cents per share on sales of $549.7 million

Gross Margin was 37.7 percent, up from 34.9 percent a year ago. Shares of Netflix were on the rise in after-hours trading, after closing up slightly at $153.13 in regular trading. In a statement, Hastings said:

Q3 represents our fourth consecutive quarter of more than one million net subscriber additions.  This growth is clearly driven by the strength of our streaming offering. In fact, by every measure, we are now primarily a streaming company that also offers DVD-by-mail. At the same time, the introduction of our streaming offering in Canada in late September has provided us with very encouraging signs regarding the potential for the Netflix service internationally.

The company reported 16.9 million total subscribers, a 52 percent gain from a year ago and a 13 percent jump from the previous quarter. Of those, 94 percent were paid paid subscribers, a decline from the 98 percent paid subscribers at the end of the year-ago quarter. Churn was down from 4.4 percent last year to 3.8 percent.

The company noted that the percentage of subscribers who watched instantly more than 15 minutes of content was up to 66 percent - up from 41 percent a year and 61 percent in the previous quarter. In the fourth quarter, the company said the majority of subscribers will watch more content streamed than they will over DVD.

Speaking of the fourth quarter, the company said its revenue will be between $586 million to $598 million and earnings will be 59 cents to 74 cents. For the full year, revenue will be $2.15 billion to $2.16 billion and earnings of $2.68 to $2.83 per share. The company expects to close the fiscal year with 19 million to 19.7 million subscribers.

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Sam has been a technology and business blogger for more than 18 years.

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Sam Diaz

Sam Diaz has nothing to disclose.

Biography

Sam Diaz

Sam has been a technology and business blogger, reporter and editor at ZDNet, the Washington Post, San Jose Mercury News and Fresno Bee for more than 18 years. He's a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and a graduate of California State University, Fresno.

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RE: Netflix earnings: subscriptions jump as it transitions to streaming company
clfitz 21st Oct 2010
@banned from zdnet

And thousands of current movies, as well as thousands of obscure movies from the 60s, 40s, 90s, 70s...Well, you get the idea.

It might sound weird to you, but I sometimes watch them ALL THE WAY THROUGH.
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streaming
banned from zdnet 21st Oct 2010
15 min a QUARTER. netflix subscriber watch streaming content 15 min a quarter. you gotta be kidding.

it's probably because the selection they find for streaming consists of thousands ob obscure movies from the 80s.
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Reading comprehension...
jasonp@... 21st Oct 2010
isn't your bag. We get it. Maybe this will help. "...more than 15 minutes of content...". For the mathematically impaired, there are a lot of values that are "more than 15 minutes". Two hours, for instance, is more than 15 minutes. Three days would also qualify as more than 15 minutes.

Here's a cycle of events you should study until it sinks in. Read. Comprehend. Respond. Say it with me now... Read. Comprehend. Respond. The middle part is very important, so don't just skip over it otherwise we're going to have to go over this again. Read. Comprehend. Respond. This should be your mantra for the next few weeks.
@banned from zdnet

And thousands of current movies, as well as thousands of obscure movies from the 60s, 40s, 90s, 70s...Well, you get the idea.

It might sound weird to you, but I sometimes watch them ALL THE WAY THROUGH.
waves @ Larry Dignan, Sam Diaz, Andrew Nusca , Dang that is some real money for them. @ banned from zdnet ? As advocate against censorship I'm dying to ask , if you are banned why can people still read your post?

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