Netflix Shares Soar After It Reports Strong Q2 Sub Growth

Will anything stop Netflix’s growth? Not yet, it seems. Its shares are up more than 10% in post market trading after it beat expectations for Q2 earnings and subscriber growth.

The company generated $26.3 million in net income, down about 63% vs the period last year, on revenues of $1.64 billion, up 22.7%. The top line is a little shy of analyst expectations for $1.65 billion in revenues. Adjusted earnings, at 6 cents a share, beat forecasts for 4 cents.

But the big news seems to be with subscriptions.  Domestic subs were up 900,000 to 42.3 million, ahead of the Street’s expectation for a 619,000 increase. Netflix projects a 1.15 million increase in Q3.

International customers increased 2.37 million to 23.25 million, well ahead of projections for a 1.95 million increase. The company says the number should grow by 2.4 million in Q3.

“We believe the higher than anticipated level of acquisition was fueled by the growing strength of our original programming slate, which in Q2 included the first seasons of Marvel’s Daredevil, Sense8, Dragons:Race To The Edge and Grace And Frankie as well as season 2 of Orange Is The New Black,” CEO Reed Hastings and CFO David Wells told investors in a letter.

They add that global spending on content will approach $5 billion in 2016 with plans to “devote more investment to originals both in absolute dollars and percentage terms,” they say. “This not only series, documentaries and stand-up but also original feature films.”

Netflix shares are up more than 101% so far this year, leading all media companies in the first half of 2015.