Netflix’s record earnings help its stock keep rolling
A crackdown on password sharing, along with price hikes, keep boosting the bottom line. Shares are up after hours.
Streaming giant Netflix posted its biggest quarterly profit ever, up 41% in Q3 compared to last year, pushing the company’s shares up nearly 5% after hours. Earnings per share and revenue both beat Wall Street expectations.
The company’s stock hit a new all-time closing high of $722.79 on Wednesday, the result of a more than 40% romp in its price so far this year. That’s far outpaced the performance of comparable streaming and entertainment companies such as Disney, up about 7% in 2024, and Warner Brothers, which has been bludgeoned in the markets this year, losing more than 30%.
The excitement over Netflix has been justified, in part, by earnings reports like the one the Los Gatos, California, company just released, showing that it’s been able to sustainably boost profits to never-before-seen levels in recent quarters.
What’s driving the profits? At least in part, it’s been drawing on a price hike of its ad-free subscription tiers and cracking down on password sharing.
