The House of Cards effect: Netflix tops $1B in Q1 revenue, near 30M U.S. subscribers

By Janko Roettgers for PaidContent.org

Looks like House of Cards has been working for Netflix: The streaming service made more than $1 billion in revenue for the first time in its corporate history in Q1 of 2013, according to financial results published Monday. And with solid subscriber additions, Netflix is also on target to hit 30 million subscribers in the U.S. this quarter.

Revenue rose to $1.02 billion in Q1, compared to $889 million in Q1 of 2012. The company added 2.03 million domestic subscribers and now has 29.17 million subscribers in the U.S., compared to 23.41 million in Q1 2012. Internationally, Netflix added 1 million subscribers, which brings the total number of subscribers outside the U.S. to 7 million, compared to 3 million a year ago.

Net income on the other hand is down a bit, coming in at $3 million, or $0.05 earnings per share. Income was dragged down by costs related to debt refinancing, and the company said that it would have had $19 million in net income, or $0.31 per share, without those costs. In Q1 of 2012, Netflix incurred a net loss of $2 million.

The company attributed the results in part to House of Cards, stating that the launch of the show and related marketing activities “provided a halo effect on our entire service.” Of course, we don’t know how many of the new subscribers signed up specifically for House of Cards, or even how many watched the show: Netflix made a conscious decision not to release any ratings for any of its content.

Other than the financials, there were two interesting announcements made in the letter to shareholders: Netflix will introduce a family streaming plan that will allow users to stream to four devices at a time in the U.S. soon. The plan will cost $12 a month, compared to Netflix’s regular $8 plan, which only allows two simultaneous streams.

This is an excerpt. Click here to read the full article on PaidContent.org.