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Netflix Surges, Harder For Foxtel To Take On

As Foxtel struggles to grow their subs base, Netflix is surging with the US streaming Company delivering 8.3m new subscribers in the last quarter.

At this stage it’s not known how many new subscribers were added in Australia.

Analysts ‘had been tipping approximately 6.34 million new additions for Netflix who now has 117.6 million customers worldwide, wrapping up its biggest year ever for new subscribers.

International territories accounted for the bulk of the subscriber growth in the most recent quarter and hold the key to Netflix’s future, with additions totalling 6.36 million to beat the 5.05 million averages of analysts’ estimates.

Bloomberg said that while rival media companies merge, fire staff and fret about the future of their businesses, Netflix keeps chugging along, adding customers at home and in overseas markets such as Australia.

Sales grew by a third to $3.29 billion, the company said Monday after markets closed, while earnings almost tripled from a year prior.

In Australia Netflix has stripped share from Foxtel who yesterday announced the appointment of Andy Lark – a former marketing executive at Dell, Sun Microsystems and the Commonwealth Bank– has been appointed chief marketing executive at Foxtel, ahead of the float of Foxtel and the combined Fox Sports.

Overnight Netflix said that they will plow all of that and more into new TV shows and movies. The company has said it will spend as much as $8 billion on programming this year, and disclosed Monday it will shell out another $2 billion for marketing.

The company is dramatically increasing its non-English programming, with plans to release 30 local language productions in 2018.

ChannelNews understands that the Company is also looking at new productions in Australia.

Shares in Netflix rose as much as 9.8 percent to $249.95 in extended trading, a new high. The stock has gained 19 percent this year and its market value, at around $100 billion, was more than four times that of CBS owner of the most watched U.S. TV network and Channel Ten in Australia.

Bloomberg said that Netflix’s success has inspired fellow tech giants Facebook, Apple and Amazon, to try their hand at original programming.

It has also spurred TV companies like Walt Disney, to invest more in online services and acquire competitors. Yet Netflix has a significant head start on all those players and argued in a letter to shareholders Monday that they would complement the company.



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