Shares of Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) are approaching two-year lows today after a bearish analyst note.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch warns of "another year of pain" at the video service giant, lowering its profit target as the vicious cycle of throwing domestic streaming profits at international expansion continues. If that doesn't pan out, Netflix will probably be able to improve its profitability by giving its passport a rest -- yet that would also imply that its core business is teetering.

In short, it seems as if Netflix can't win in either scenario.

Netflix's latest quarter shows the problem with its aggressive overseas push. Netflix may have achieved a contribution profit of $67 million in its domestic streaming business during the first three months of this year, but that was more than offset by a $103 million shortfall in its international streaming unit.

Going big overseas doesn't come cheap, and the $103 million in contribution deficit during this year's first quarter was as much as Netflix recorded as a deficit there for all of 2011.

Netflix can't turn back now. Its domestic streaming business will get harder to grow at this point, forcing it to smoke out growth abroad. There are already 23.4 million Netflix streaming accounts in this country. How much better can that get?

The addressable market is huge, but the competition is coming.

  • Verizon (NYSE: VZ) and Redbox parent Coinstar (Nasdaq: CSTR) have a new digital service rolling out later this year.
  • Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) continues to add to its streaming library of titles that it lets Amazon Prime members access at no additional cost.     
  • If and when Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) introduces a full-blown Apple HDTV, it would be nuts for it not to go from simply offering piecemeal rentals through iTunes to an unlimited service that owners rely on perpetually.

Netflix shares shed more than 60% of their value last year, and it's hard to see things getting even worse this time around. Yes, things look bad here, but there's one scenario that Merrill Lynch and other naysayers are forgetting: Netflix may turn a profit at its highly scalable international operators sooner rather than later.

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