Much as it pains me to take up my time and yours with Netflix earnings (particularly given that you, although not me, probably waste enough time with Netflix already), the company’s Q3 results demanded a mention.
Netflix is, of course, attempting to bolster subscriptions by cracking down on password sharing, and by appearances the strategy is working.
Paid net adds during the quarter were 8.76 million, a blockbuster beat. Consensus expected 6.2 million.
It was the best quarter for paid additions since Q2 2020, during the stay-at-home boom for tech stocks.
The company’s guidance for paid adds is vague now. Q4 additions are seen similar to Q3 “plus or minus a few million.” That’s profoundly unhelpful. The Street expects 7.7 million for the current quarter.
Apparently, paid sharing was a good idea. There was some concern initially that people might simply stop watching Netflix if everybody had to pay (as opposed to just one person per friend group paying) but… well, humanity is addicted to streaming content. And Netflix is the king of paid streaming.
It’s conceivable that Netflix could add 20 million paid subscribers this year. For context, they added 36.6 million in 2020. Last year, they added just 8.9 million.
“We’ve now successfully taken action in every region in which we operate and we’re rolling it out as planned,” the company said, of paid sharing. “The cancel reaction continues to be low, exceeding our expectations, and borrower households converting into full paying memberships are demonstrating healthy retention.”
That’s what you want to hear. The company sounded optimistic about the prospects for turning more “borrower households” into fully-paid add(ict)s.
Then there’s paid ads, with one “d.” That’s going well too. Or at least it’s not going poorly. In the dozen countries where Netflix is running ad memberships, they account for about a third of signups. Ad memberships grew 70% QoQ.
Again, it’s all about the epochal shift to streaming and Netflix’s dominance. “Ad dollars follow eyeballs and more and more TV viewing is shifting from linear to streaming,” the company remarked. “We’re a leader in streaming engagement, and the engagement of our ad tier members is strong.”
Finally, Netflix raised prices on some plans to viewers in the US, the UK and France.
The company said EPS will be $2.15 this quarter on revenue of $8.69 billion. The Street was looking for $2.17 and $8.76 billion in Q4, respectively. As you might imagine, the shares responded to the big paid adds beat and the price increases. If Wednesday’s after hours gain for the stock holds up on Thursday, it’ll be a banner session for Netflix.
Now go stream something.
I’m with you H, I may be a couch potato, but I’m not streaming television shows.
I don’t have the word to describe the irony of the model of paying for premium, ad-free content succumbing to the model of paying less for inferior ad-laden content, as these streamers all endeavor to push up the price of their premium ad-free offerings to force more customers down to the more lucrative ad-laden content, just as the legacy ad-dependent broadcast networks finally get their feet firmly planted in the premium ad-free space. I don’t know about you, but I’m getting ready to bet on the collapse of the podcast phenomenon and a return to prominence of AM radio.
There was free television, then with ads…
There was paid (cable) television, then you paid and still got ads…
There was free streaming videos, then paid streaming, then paid streaming with ads…
There was free VR content, then paid VR content…
Since the beginning most people have considered public media as a certain amount of content interrupted by ads. That’s backwards. It is a dose of ads interrupted by content. People seem to be shocked they have to “put up” with ads or fees. How else do they thing content gets paid for? As near as I can tell there is only one new scripted TV program this season, NBC’s “Irrational.” My guess is that a bunch of these made for spring or summer and when the network saw the strike was coming they saved it for fall. Everything else is live sports, game and reality shows because paid actors aren’t the main players. Everyone is an amateur. No talks going on and there’s plenty of live sports so no one cares much if scripted series are gone for now.
They are also raising their premium rates to $23.00 per month. That is eye wateringly high in my opinion, they don’t even offer any sports! I barely watch any of their programming so I’m transferring account ownership to my wife who actually does watch it.
You can get five or six streaming services for under $100/mo. That is cheap for what most people consider a life necessity, cheaper than cable TV in its heyday. Quarterly sub ebb/flow aside, demand is going to stay strong. The question has always been if streaming models can make enough money, and if anyone can, it is probably NFLX.
Yeah, at the end of the day, this is still very cheap entertainment. One date night can set you back the cost of half a year of Netflix (and that’s still a cheap date night). I suppose my privilege may be showing, but I can’t stand tv ads and will never willingly sign up for the ads-supported version of a service if an ad-free version exists. If it weren’t for live sports, I could rid myself of ads for good.