Netflix stock soared over 14% in pre-market trading today after the company released its Q4 and full-year 2024 earnings.
In a statement to investors, the company said it “executed on our plan to reaccelerate growth” in 2024, which brought about a Q4 and yearly revenue 16% higher than in 2023, stating, “We’re optimistic heading into the new year.”
Netflix yearly highlights include:
· Operating income exceeded $10B for the first time.
· In Q4, revenue increased 16% year over year, helped by 19M paid net adds, while operating income rose 52% year over year.
· The company finished 2024 with 302M memberships.
· Q4 slate outperformed expectations: Squid Game season 2 is on track to become most watched original series seasons, Carry-On joined all-time Top 10 films list, the Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson fight became the most-streamed sporting event ever and on Christmas Day the company delivered the two most-streamed NFL games in history.
Looking forward, the company’s top priorities are:
· Improve its core business with more series and films members love, an enhanced product experience and growth of our ads business.
· Further develop newer initiatives such as live programming and games.
· Sustain healthy growth – with a forecast 2025 revenue of $43.5-$44.5B (+$0.5B vs. prior forecast, despite the strengthening of the US dollar) and an operating margin of 29%.
· Maintain a leadership position in engagement, revenue and profit, focused on improving all aspects of service and, combined with the return in 2025 of the platform’s biggest shows (Squid Game, Wednesday and Stranger Things).
Netflix Co-CEO, President and Director, Gregory Peters told investors, “we love our ads plan because it allows us to offer a lower price point for consumers” adding, “we’ve seen significant growth since launch, which we’re excited about.”
Moving into FY 2025, Peters said, “I think you can say that 2025 is the year that we transition from crawl to walk. A big part of that is standing up our own ad stack. We launched that in Canada and that’s done well. We’re testing, we’re learning quickly as we prepare to then roll that out in 2025 across the rest of our 12 ads countries, starting with the U.S. in April.”
“And the biggest initial benefit we have of using our own ads server is just enabling us to offer more flexibility, more ways of buying for advertisers, fewer activation hurdles, just improving the overall buyer experience. And of course, that is meant to drive increased sales and the ease of transacting with Netflix,” Peters concluded.
Click here to read our exclusive interview with Netflix Chairman and Co-CEO Reed Hastings
By CEO NA Editorial Staff
