Netflix Adds More Subscribers, Q3 Earnings Beat Wall Street; Shares Up 7%

(RTTNews) - Shares of Netflix Inc. (NFLX) jumped 7% in extended trading session Wednesday after the online-video streaming giant said it added more subscribers in the third quarter after a disappointing previous quarter. The company's third-quarter earnings topped Wall Street estimates, as revenues surged 31%.

Netflix added 6.77 million subscribers globally in the quarter, below its forecast of 7.00 million, to end the quarter with 158.33 million subscribers. The company added 520,000 customers in the U.S. during the quarter, while it expected an addition of 800 thousand subscribers. International subscriber additions were 6.26 million, above its expectation of 6.20 million.

"As we've improved the variety, diversity and quality of our content slate, member engagement has grown, revenue has increased, and we're able to further fund our content investment," the company said in a statement.

Looking forward to the third quarter, Netflix expects to add 7.60 million memberships, with 0.60 million in the U.S. and 7.00 million internationally.

Los Gatos, California-based Netflix's third-quarter rose to $665 million or $1.47 per share from $403 million or $0.89 per share last year. On average, 39 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected earnings of $1.04 per share for the quarter.

Netflix's revenues for the quarter rose 31% to $5.25 billion from $4.00 billion last year. Analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $5.25 billion for the quarter.

The video-streaming service provider said average paid streaming memberships rose 22% and ARPU increased 9% year over year.

Looking forward to the fourth quarter, Netflix expects revenues of $5.44 billion and earnings of $0.51 per share. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters currently expect earnings of $0.81 per share and revenues of $5.52 billion.

NFLX closed Wednesday's trading at $286.28, up $2.03 or 0.71%, on the Nasdaq. The stock further gained $22.18 or 7.75% in the after-hours trading.