Netflix wowed investors today when it announced that it picked up 4.9 million subscribers to its online streaming video platform during the first quarter of 2015. That beat the company’s forecast of 4.1 million net subscriber additions, and means Netflix now has a total of 62.3 million subscribers worldwide. The stronger than predicted growth shows continuing interest in Netflix’s streaming offering – a good sign for a company that’s facing competition from the likes of Amazon and other firms.
In a letter to shareholders (PDF), Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and CFO David Wells credited the company’s original content offerings like “House of Cards” and “The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” for the growth. During the first quarter alone, users of the streaming service watched 10 billion hours of video content.
The company reported revenue of $1.57 billion was in line with the consensus among financial analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters, and an increase of more than 23 percent year-over-year.
Netflix’s earnings per share were a slightly different story. Without a foreign exchange loss in the quarter, Netflix would have reported earnings of 77 cents a share, beating analyst estimates by 8 cents. However, the company’s exchange losses brought the company’s earnings to 38 cents a share.
Still, investors on Wall Street seem content to accept the company’s foreign exchange explanation. Shares of the company’s stock are up 12 percent in after-hours trading as of this writing.
Netflix’s detailed financial results are embedded below.
