Netflix shares closed up 11% on Friday after the media streaming giant reported third-quarter earnings and revenue that beat expectations.
The company on Thursday reported earnings per share of $5.40 for the three-month period ended Sept. 30, surpassing the $5.12 LSEG consensus estimate. Revenue also beat expectations, coming in at $9.83 billion, above the $9.77 billion anticipated by analysts.
Crucially, Netflix saw momentum in its ad-supported membership tier, which jumped 35% quarter over quarter. While Netflix doesn’t expect ads to become its primary growth drive until 2026, it said the ad-tier accounted for over 50% of sign-ups in the third-quarter in countries where it’s available.
Netflix also gave an upbeat outlook for the December quarter, saying it expects fourth-quarter revenue to rise 14.7% to $10.13 billion. It’s forecasting revenue of $43 billion to $44 billion for 2025, which would mean growth of 11% to 13% from its expected 2024 revenue of $38.9 billion.
Analysts at Citi said in a note following Netflix’s earnings report that the firm’s fourth-quarter outlook “exceeded the Street” while its 2025 forecast “was relatively in line with consensus estimates.”
Richard Broughton, executive director of Ampere Analysis, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Friday that Netflix has benefited from continued investments in content, despite a grim environment for the broader media landscape.
“It’s a good indicator that some of the growth that dropped out of the market in 2022 is returning. If you think about the last 24 months, we’ve had cutbacks in content expenditure, hiring freezes, redundancies in some of the major studios and streamers. And all through this, Netflix has tried to keep investing in content. That sets it up extremely well over the next couple of years,” Broughton said.
“If we think about scripted TV, dramas, romance and science fiction, Netflix is going to be responsible for not far off 1 in 10 global series next year. It’s in a very, very different position compared to some of its competitors just in terms of scale,” he added.
Correction: Netflix expects fourth-quarter revenue to rise 14.7% to $10.13 billion. An earlier version misstated a figure.
