In America’s booming internet industry it’s all about users, users, users (James Dean writes). This mantra guides Wall Street’s assessment of Netflix, the world’s largest video streaming company, whenever it publishes its latest tally of subscribers. Profit, revenue, cash-burn and other supposedly worthy metrics are deemed much less interesting.
So when Netflix smashed its third-quarter subscriber growth target on Tuesday night, its shares leaped by 14 per cent. Netflix brought in seven million extra subscribers, a couple of million more than it had forecast in July. Its estimate for fourth-quarter subscriber growth, of 9.4 million, was a million ahead of Wall Street’s estimates. All of this came against the backdrop of a missed second-quarter subscriber growth forecast, a dip in its share price and worries