Netflix disclosed that its earnings for the first quarter of this year have been the highest in the streaming site's history. It has gained 9.6 million new subscribers following the recent price hike and the emergence of more competitors.
Netflix revealed that its 2019 Q1 earnings per share of 76 cents were higher than their expectations of only 57 cents. This means that the company earned $4.52 billion whole the expectation was only $4.50 billion.
With the addition of over nine million new subscribers, Netflix now has a total of 148.9 million subscribers. The break down for this shows that 1.74 million are from the U.S. while the rest, 7.86 million are from overseas streaming customers. However, Deadline reported that despite the growth in Q1, the second quarter will be slow as the streaming company continues to roll out price hikes.
Moreover, although the first quarter result was very healthy, Netflix's stock price is down by 4 percent in the trading day. This is due to the company's debt that worth millions and lower Q2 estimates. In any case, Netflix is still expecting a surge of new subscribers of at least five million worldwide.
The film is expecting more customers especially in the second half of the year when it will release many popular shows that include "The Crown," "Money Heist," "Orange Is The New Black," "13 Reasons Why," Martin Scorsese's "The Irishman" and Michael Bay's "Six Underground."
Furthermore, Netflix made it clear that it is not affected by the threat of new rivals such as Apple and Disney that recently launched their own streaming sites. In a note addressed to its investors, Netflix reiterated that Apple and Disney are world-class consumer brands and they are excited to compete with them.
As per CNBC, the streaming site does not think that its new rivals will affect the growth of its subscribers in and out of the U.S.
"The clear beneficiaries will be content creators and consumers who will reap the rewards of many companies vying to provide a great video experience for audiences," Netflix stated. "We don't anticipate that these new entrants will materially affect our growth because the transition from linear to on-demand entertainment is so massive and because of the differing nature of our content offerings."
Lastly, Netflix explained, "We believe we'll all continue to grow as we each invest more in content and improve our service and as consumers continue to migrate away from linear viewing similar to how US cable networks collectively grew for years as viewing shifted from broadcast networks during the 1980s and 1990s."
