Netflix Q3 earnings grow amid rise in subscribers

Netflix posted sharply higher third-quarter earnings Tuesday thanks to a stronger slate of titles, including 'Squid Game'.

Netflix posted sharply higher third-quarter earnings Tuesday thanks to a stronger slate of titles, including “Squid Game,” the dystopian survival drama from South Korea that the company says became its biggest-ever TV show.

The company has ramped up production, rebounding from pandemic-induced delays in the first half of the year. It’s also looking beyond movies and TV and said it plans to fund “new growth opportunities” such as video games, which are being tested in some markets.

“It remains very early days for this initiative and, like other content categories we’ve expanded into, we plan to try different types of games, learn from our members and improve our game library,” the company said.

And as it faces saturation in the U.S. market, Netflix is focusing on growing its international subscriber numbers. For instance, it launched a free mobile plan in Kenya, in the hopes it will get more people in the country to sign up for paid memberships.

In all, Netflix said its subscriber base grew 9% from a year earlier, to 213.6 million, surpassing its own projections.

The increase came about even as Netflix’s subscriber growth softened “a little bit” in Latin America after the company increased prices in Brazil, Spencer Neumann, Netflix’s chief financial officer, said during a conference call with a Wall Street analyst.

“It’s a short-term slowdown in growth, but good for our business and we’re already continuing to grow through it,” he said.

Netflix earned $1.45 billion, or $3.19 per share, in the latest quarter. That’s up from $789.9 million or $1.79 per share, a year earlier.