Netflix has released its fourth-quarter earnings report, showing that the company’s market capitalization has exceeded $100 billion USD for the first time.
The milestone was reached thanks to a record high of 8.33 million subscribers in the fourth quarter — well above the 6.39 million estimated by Wall Street.
As a result, the company brought in $3.29 billion in revenue, slightly above the $3.28 billion expected by a Thomson Reuters consensus estimate.
At the domestic level, Netflix brought in 1.98 million subscribers, compared to the 1.29 million expected by a StreetAccount estimate.
Internationally, net subscribers came out to 6.36 million, versus the 5.10 million expected by a StreetAccount estimate.
Subscribers were also watching content for longer periods of time, with average streaming hours per membership increasing by nine percent year-over-year.
For 2017 as a whole, Netflix says streaming revenue rose 36 percent to over $11 billion, while the company added 24 million new memberships, compared to 19 million in 2016. Altogether, Netflix shares are now up over 64 percent over the past year.
Netflix’s fourth-quarter marked the launch of second seasons of Stranger Things and The Crown and the fourth season of Black Mirror, as well as new series like Marvel’s The Punisher and David Fincher’s Mindhunter, among other properties.
In late December, Netflix also debuted Bright, the Will Smith-starring science-fiction film that cost $90 million to make. While panned by critics, a sequel has been greenlit, as the film viewed a massive 11 million times in its first three days on Netflix. Bright is only the first of several big-budget films Netflix has in the pipeline.
With the additional revenue generated by the surge in subscribers, Netflix says it plans to spend $7.5 billion to $8 billion on content in 2018. To do this, the company expects to raise even more debt financing, forecasting a negative cash flow of $3 billion to $4 billion in 2018.
Netflix also aims to raise its marketing budget by 50 percent to $2 billion this year.
“Given our track record of content investments helping to increase growth, we are excited about the growth in future years from the increased investments we are making in original content this year,” the company said in a statement.
Netflix’s full earnings report can be viewed here.
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