Netflix’s stock price has just jumped 25% during after-hours trading today, April 22nd. This jump comes directly after Netflix’s latest earnings call where the company raked in earnings of 31 cents per share, though some analysts only expected the company to earn 19 cents per share throughout the quarter. These earnings are excluding Netflix’s one-time debt related charges. During the same time period, Netflix brought in $1 billion in sales.
Netflix had a tremendous fiscal quarter due to massive subscriber growth and the addition of original content programming. The company reeled in 3 million new subscribers worldwide during this quarter, bringing the service to a total of 36 million subscribers. Astonishingly during the first-quarter, less than 8,000 people canceled their free Netflix trial, this means that people are actually paying for the service, not just freeloading off of the free trial.
New Netflix subscribers may have been attracted to Netflix due to the service’s launch of original programming. Netflix has already launched its first original program, ‘House of Cards’, and is set to release more programs in the near future. The program cost the streaming giant $100 million for its first two seasons alone, leaving some investors shaking their heads. However, though the experiment may be costly, House of Cards created a ton of social media buzz as all episodes were made available for viewing at once.
Netflix also released an updated iOS app during its earnings call. This update brings the app to version 4.0 and adds bug fixes, a redesigned audio and subtitle selector as well as a new episode selection button on the iPad client.
