Netflix added 9.33 million subscribers in the first quarter of 2024; Wall Street anticipated 4.9 million net adds. That’s a legit wow, as is Netflix’s new grand total of 269.60 million global paid subscribers.
Sure, Netflix added more than 13 million subs in the prior quarter, but in the last Q1, the company added fewer than 2 million subscribers. Things have been going very well for Netflix as of late. A year ago, shares in Netflix (NFLX) traded around $331; today, they closed at $611.15.
The streaming company posted $9.370 billion in Q1 (2024) revenue and a profit of $2.332 billion. At the end of 2023, the company forecast it would report first quarter revenue of $9.240 billion and net income of $1.976 billion, so it impressed even itself today. Netflix creamed those Wall Street analysts who expected Thursday’s announced Q1 revenue would be more like $8.73 billion.
Netflix’s main metric for success is its revenue — no longer its subscriber count. The company’s password-sharing crackdown has been a big financial success thus far; price increases and ads have also chipped in. Wall Street believes the streamer has already realized much of the potential subscriber growth from its paid-sharing program. Netflix has acknowledged that its ad supply is well ahead of its ad demand; it needs to work on that.
Some of Netflix’s biggest hits in the quarter were series “Griselda,” “The Gentlemen,” and “3 Body Problem,” though none were true breakouts. In film, the streamer’s “Stranger Things” star Millie Bobby Brown did well with her “Damsel” film.
On Day 1 of the current quarter, Netflix made a big change atop its film division: Scott Stuber is out and Dan Lin is in. Lin produced the “Lego” movies and, more recently, “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.” Stuber produced “Ted” and “Role Models.”
More to come…
