It’s been a very long time since Netflix’s quarterly results counted as a major market event.

The company’s worth $300 billion on a good day, which is to say it’s largely irrelevant in a world dominated by trillion-dollar behemoths.

Still, Netflix’s results mark the unofficial beginning of “big”-“tech” earnings, so I typically cover them.

On Thursday, the company said paid net adds were 8.05 million in Q2, which looked like yet another huge beat. Consensus was 4.87 million.

This marks the third consecutive blowout quarter for what, once upon a time, was a crucial metric, not just for Netflix, but for the whole market.

Last quarter, Netflix said it’ll stop reporting the figure as of Q1 2025’s results. The company stopped providing paid net adds guidance last year.

Revenue of $9.56 billion was a small beat. Consensus was looking for $9.53 billion. EPS of $4.88 beat by 14 cents on 70bps of margin upside to consensus (27.2% versus 26.5% expected). Free cash flow was a little light.

As for the topline guide — which is what matters — the company sees $9.73 billion in revenue for the current quarter. That was short of consensus. Analysts were collectively looking for $9.83 billion. That said, Netflix guided well ahead of the Street on the bottom line. The company expects $5.10 in EPS in Q3.

Investors remain focused on the company’s (successful) password crackdown and also on Netflix’s fledgling ad business. The latter (ad-supported memberships) grew 34% sequentially. That sounds healthy — and it is — but it’s down from 65% the prior quarter and by half versus the pace seen in Q4 and Q3 of 2023. The ad tier’s share of all signups in ads markets is 45%. “Our ad revenue is growing nicely and is becoming a more meaningful contributor to our business,” the shareholder letter said.

I have to say: Netflix’s report looked pretty good to me. I’m hardly the final word on that, but I didn’t see much to nitpick. Icing on the cake: The company lifted the lower-end of its full-year revenue growth forecast range, which is now 14% to 15% from 13% to 15% previously.

“Our updated revenue forecast reflects solid membership growth trends and business momentum,” the release said, adding that the company now expects 2024 operating margin of 26%, up 100bps from the previous estimate “due to the improved revenue outlook and ongoing expense discipline.”

Investors will fuss about the small miss on the topline guide and the company’s allusion to lower paid net adds in Q3 versus the same period a year ago (a difficult comp given that Q3 2023 was the first full quarter to reflect the impact of paid sharing), but this was a good report.