14 DAY TRIAL // Netflix, the movie and TV show rental powerhouse, is continuing a string of great quarters with the release of its latest financial results, for the first quarter of the year. Subscriber numbers along with revenue and income grew significantly, though in line with what the company has been seeing in the past year.
"We were thrilled to add 3.3 million domestic subscribers in Q1, nearly double the number added in Q1 of 2010," CEO Reed Hastings wrote [PDF] in his shareholders letter.
"Our growth in Canada was strong and consistent throughout Q1. Less than seven months from launch, we ended the quarter with just over 800,000 subscribers," Hastings added.
Netflix added 3.6 million subscribers world wide, meaning in the US and Canada, the two countries it operates in currently, in the last quarter. It now has 23.6 million subscribers, up 69 percent from the 14 million it had a year ago.
The number is being compared to Comcast's 22.8 million pay TV subscribers at the end of 2010. It's not a completely fair comparison since Netflix numbers are for Canada as well and are at the end Q1 not Q4 2010. That said, it's still interesting, especially since Netflix is growing at a huge pace.
Netflix brought in $719 million in Q1 2011, compared to $494 million in the same period of 2010, a 46 percent rise. Netflix had a revenue of $596 million in the last quarter of 2010.
The company expects much of the same for the current quarter as well. It estimates it will have 24.9 million to 25.85 million subscribers globally at the end of Q2. Revenue is estimated at $778 million to $798 million.
Netflix also confirmed that it plans to fund more original content, like the recently announced House of Cards which is expected to launch on the site in late 2012.
"Lots of attention was paid to our decision to license the exclusive rights to premiere Media Rights Capital’s 'House of Cards' series, planned for late 2012," Reeds wrote.
"Rather than a shift in strategy towards original programming, our decision was driven by a desire to test a new licensing model using a small portion of our content budget," he explained.
"Ideally, we’ll license two or three similar, but smaller, deals so we can gain confidence that whatever results we achieve are repeatable," he announced.