Netflix Q1 Results Top Expectations as Streamer Stops Reporting Subscriber Counts

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Netflix has stopped disclosing its subscriber count on a quarterly basis, but it continues to thrive, showing robust growth. The company’s Q1 2025 financial results exceeded forecasts by Wall Street analysts.

In this latest quarter, the top-tier streaming service provider announced revenue of $10.54 billion, representing a 12.5% increase, along with earnings per share at $6.61 (up from $5.28 in the same period last year). This marks the first time Netflix will no longer reveal subscriber numbers, a figure investors have traditionally relied upon to assess growth. Instead, the company is now emphasizing its financial performance and user interaction.

Typically, financial analysts predicted a total revenue of $10.51 billion and earnings per share of $5.66 for Netflix, as indicated by LSEG Data & Analytics. However, Netflix surpassed these expectations during their recent earnings release. This positive result comes at a time when there are widespread concerns about an impending economic recession, which could potentially impact consumer spending and advertising budgets. For the entire year of 2024, Netflix’s revenue saw a significant increase of 15.6%.

In their quarterly report to shareholders, Netflix explained that their income mainly stemmed from an increase in subscribers and a rise in prices. The company stated that their income slightly surpassed their predictions due to a higher-than-anticipated number of subscriptions and advertising revenue (which is relatively minor compared to subscription income).

For question 2, Netflix anticipates a 15% increase in earnings, attributing this to the complete quarter’s advantage from recent price adjustments and ongoing growth in membership and advertising income. The company also forecasts an operating margin of 33%, representing a roughly 6 percentage point improvement compared to the previous year.

In the final stretch of 2024, Netflix boasted a staggering 301.6 million worldwide users who paid for their subscriptions, marking a 16% increase from the previous year. However, the company emphasizes that the count of new subscribers per quarter may not be as significant as financial and user engagement indicators. This is due to Netflix’s strategy of offering plans at various price points and its paid-sharing option, which enables subscribers to add additional members to their accounts for an extra cost.

Experts believe that Netflix implemented this shift due to a decrease in its subscriber growth rate, similar to what Apple did back in 2018 when they stopped revealing iPhone and other product line sales figures. After increasing prices in the U.S. and various markets during Q1 of 2025, Netflix can now hide subscriber losses while demonstrating significant revenue expansion, as stated by Alicia Reese, an analyst from Wedbush Securities, in her research note dated April 11.

Over the past three months, Netflix announced that it had repaid a sum of $800 million using funds from its 2024 refinancing and also purchased around 3.7 million shares for approximately $3.5 billion (leaving $13.6 billion under its existing share buyback authorization). At the end of this period, Netflix had a total debt of $15.1 billion and cash reserves amounting to $7.2 billion. In the upcoming quarter, Netflix has $1 billion in bond maturities to settle, which it plans to pay off using the proceeds from its investment-grade bond deal of the previous year, which are currently being held in short-term investments, as stated.

Shown here: Cristin Milioti from the “Black Mirror” Season 7 episode “USS Callister: Into Infinity,” available on Netflix.

Or, in a more conversational tone:

Check out this image of Cristin Milioti in the “Black Mirror” Season 7 episode titled “USS Callister: Into Infinity.” You can catch it on Netflix!

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2025-04-17 23:16