Netflix Had 8.3 Million Global Net Adds Q4, Significantly Outdoing Its Forecast

Netflix had 8.3 million global net subscriber additions in Q4, significantly beating its October forecast of 6.3 million, the company reported Monday. “We had a beautiful Q4, completing a great year as internet TV expands globally,” said the company in its quarterly letter to shareholders. The net adds marked the highest quarter for that metric in the company’s history and was an 18 percent increase from 2016's record Q4 7.05 million net adds, said Netflix. It credited its strong “original content slate and the ongoing global adoption of internet entertainment.” Geographically, "outperformance vs. guidance was broad-based,” it said, including 2 million net adds in the U.S., compared with 1.25 million in October's forecast. Internationally, it added 6.36 million memberships, a new record for quarterly net adds for this segment and above guidance, it said. Netflix has been “talking about the transition from linear to streaming for the past 10 years,” said the shareholder letter. “As this trend becomes increasingly evident, more companies are entering the market for premium video content.” Since the market for entertainment time is “vast,” Netflix thinks it “can support many successful services,” it said. “Entertainment services are often complementary given their unique content offerings. We believe this is largely why both we and Hulu have been able to succeed and grow.” The stock rose 8.2 percent in after-hours trading to $246.25.