Netflix Q2 - Lumpy Subs

Netflix had second quarter results out on Tuesday night, and their subscriber growth numbers were described as "lumpy". That was expected, to be fair, since Covid created significant churn in signups over the past 18 months.

This is hardly a problem in my view (I'm a very long-standing shareholder, so admittedly rather biased) as Netflix now has 209 million paying customers around the world. That's a lot of people, generating big annuity revenues. They also enjoyed an 8% growth in average revenue per membership.

The bigger issue for them currently is Covid-related production delays, meaning that Netflix had fewer releases recently. Mind you, I've never found it hard to find something good to watch? I recently enjoyed Black Summer (zombie apocalypse hot-mess) and Shetland (British crime series).

In other news, Netflix confirmed rumours it's getting into the gaming industry. Netflix recently hired video-game executive Mike Verdu from Facebook, where he was vice president of augmented reality and virtual reality content. According to the comments, games will be included in your Netflix subscription at no additional cost, and played on your mobile phone. Ok, maybe that's not for me, I don't have time for that kind of thing.

Anyway, Netflix is a brilliant company, and the joint-CEOs Reed Hastings and Ted Sarandos are wonderful and talented guys. Buy this one, streaming media is a dead cert and Netflix is the best entry point. The price is about $515 per share.