Netflix shares briefly stumbled after the streaming giant posted strong fourth-quarter earnings but gave disappointing guidance on the coming quarter.
The quarter four earnings announcement on Tuesday comes as the company faces a field increasingly crowded by new streaming services like Disney+ and AppleTV+. The company also disclosed it had added 420,000 new customers in the last three months of 2019, fewer than the 600,000 it had predicted.
Netflix shares were initially down 2% in after hours trading before rebounding to a 1% gain.
The company’s fourth-quarter revenue was $5.47bn, slightly above the $5.45bn predicted by analysts. The earnings report was Netflix’s first since Walt Disney Co debuted its rival offering, Disney+, in November 2019.
“Streaming entertainment is a global phenomenon and we’re working hard to build on our early progress,” the company said in a letter to shareholders.
The subscribers added in the fourth quarter of 2019 bring the streaming platform to a total of 167m subscribers worldwide. It said it expected slower subscriber growth in the first quarter of 2020, reinforcing investor fears that it will not be able to stand up to growing competition.
Netflix said in a letter to shareholders its new show The Witcher is “tracking to be our biggest season one TV series ever”. The company is placing an increased emphasis on original content after receiving Golden Globe nominations in both TV and film, including its series The Crown and Unbelievable and films The Irishman and Marriage Story. Both movies are among the frontrunners for the best picture Academy Award, which would be Netflix’s first.
Meanwhile, Netflix lost the rights to Friends, one of its most-watched series, in 2020 when WarnerMedia bought it back as it gears up to launch its own streaming service, HBO Max.
