Shares of Netflix
Netflix now has 857,000 movie-lovin' subscribers, after upping the guidance for its quarter-ending subscription numbers on Dec. 4. At the end of its third quarter, Netflix subscribers numbered 742,000. This time last year, it had a mere 456,000.
Paid subscribers currently make up 93% of Netflix's members, with new trial members making up the remaining percentage. That split is a bit more skewed in favor of trial members this quarter than in Q3. But it's still better than last year's Q4. Additionally, the small rise can be attributed, somewhat, to seasonality.
Netflix didn't report its customer churn today, instead reiterating what it said early last month: Churn for the fourth quarter should be down to 6.6% from its previous guidance of 7%. This is a great trend for Netflix -- a dropping customer churn rate and skyrocketing subscribers.
Another measure of Netflix's success, household penetration, was also up in the fourth quarter. In the San Francisco area, Netflix's penetration rose to 3.8%, from Q3's 3.5%. In the rest of the country, Netflix reached 0.73% of U.S. homes, up from 0.63% in the third quarter and 0.39% in last year's Q4.
Remarkable -- Netflix still has so much market yet to conquer! The stock was beaten down to under $5 a share over the last six months, on concerns about subscriber churn and "bigger" competition moving into the company's territory. Neither fear has been validated yet, and, in fact, Netflix continues to buzz right along, shipping out DVDs each month to more people, retaining more customers, and adding to its coffers.
Naysayers waiting for the company to fail may be doing so for a while. This is one sequel worth watching.
