Live Earnings Blog: Will Netflix (NFLX) Soar After Announcing Q4 Earnings Tonight?

The number to watch tomorrow will be whether Netflix breaks $1,000 per share. As of 5:35 p.m. ET, shares are trading for $995, which is up about 14.4% from Netflix’s close today.

One thing is for certain, the market was impressed with Netflix’s net additions last quarter and the growth of the company’s subscription tier will decide how high the stock soars in 2025.

This concludes our Netflix live blog. Make sure to check back to 24/7 Wall Street throughout earnings season as we’ll be responding to the biggest earnings releases in real time!

Netflix hosted its conference call (or as they call it, Earnings Interview), here are some of the key highlights:

• The company said the wildfires in California won’t have any impact on their business.
• Netflix also said that their 19 million net additions were broad-based and major events and releases like the Jake Paul fight and Squid Games drove a small percentage of their total member acquisitions.
• 55% of sign-ups were for Netflix’s ad-supported plan.
• View hours per member on the ads plan is similar to Netflix subscribers who pay for more expensive tiers.

Netflix’s conference call hasn’t started yet, but the company’s shares keep gaining. Netflix is now up 13%.

We’ll keep the live blog updated with important quotes from the conference call.

While Netflix’s first-quarter guidance came in slightly below expectations, they raised their full-year guidance.

Previously, Netflix was guiding to $43 to $44 billion, but is now projecting $43.5 to $44.5 billion. In addition, they took operating margin guidance up to 29% from a previous forecast of 28%.

Those long-term raises to forecast probably help Wall Street overlook next quarter’s guidance. And of course, the most important figure remains Netflix’s 18.9 million net additions last quarter.

Netflix is raising the price on their ad-supported tier to $7.99 from a prior price of $6.99. The company plans to raise prices across all their plans with their most popular plan now costing $17.99 per month.

One interesting note, while shares of Netflix are up 10% after hours, their forecast for next quarter looks light.

According to the numbers we have (compliments of S&P Capital IQ), here’s what Wall Street was expecting next quarter:

• Revenue of $10.48 billion
• EPS of $5.98
• Operating Income: $3.11 billion

Netflix ended up forecasting $10.42 billion in sales, $5.58 in EPS, and and $2.94 billion in operating income.

It appears for now, the market is focusing more on Netflix’s 19M paid additions more than this forecast.

The 19 million paid additions number is the biggest quarter of net adds in Netflix’s history. 

Wow, Netflix added 18.91 million paid net additions. As a reminder, Wall Street was expecting 8.2 million and betting markets were projecting 11.1 million.

If you’re wondering why Netflix is up 11% after-hours, this is the key number to zero in on.

This subscriber addition number likely points to live programming being more effective at bringing in new subscriptions than expected.

Netflix Numbers are out:

• Revenue: $10.25 billion (ahead of expectations of $10.11 billion)
• EPS of $4.27 (ahead of expectations of $4.21)

And the company announced a new buyback plan. The market is a fan of the results, shares are now up 11% at 4:05 p.m. ET.

Earnings just released and Netflix immediately jumped 8%. We’re digging into the numbers and will post our analysis shortly.

We have just 10 more minutes until markets close and Netflix is holding onto about a 1.2% gain for the day.

We’ll continue updating this live blog as Netflix hosts its conference call so make sure to keep refreshing for updates as we’ll be reacting live to Netflix’s announcement. 

Nielsen released new figures on TV viewing today that show streaming preparing to surpass cable and broadcast’s combined total.

Overall, 43.3% of all U.S. TV watch time in December was streaming. YouTube came in first with 11.1% followed by Netflix at 8.5%, Amazon at 4%, Hulu at 2.5%, and Disney at 2.1%.

Combined, Broadcast and Cable amounted 46.2% of TV viewing time. It has been a long decline for traditional TV, but it appears 2025 will finally be the year that total streaming time surpasses Cable and Broadcast combined in the United States.

Below we previewed Netflix’s expected fourth-quarter earnings, but another ara to watch will be what the company forecasts next quarter.

Wall Street currently expects:

• Revenue of $10.48 billion
• EPS of $5.98
• Operating Income: $3.11 billion

In Netflix’s last quarterly report, they guided to revenue of $43 to $44 billion in 2025 with a 28% operating margin.

Wall Street currently is slightly above the midpoint of that guidance – with expectations of $43.6 billion in revenue for 2025 – so Netflix taking that guidance up could also be a potential catalyst for shares after hours.