There may be turmoil in the financial markets, but Netflix continues to roll.
The streaming giant earned $10.5 billion in revenue and nearly $2.9 billion in net income in the first three months of the year, exceeding Wall Street’s forecasts, the company reported Thursday.
The announcement kicked off media earnings season, which is turning into an even more anxious affair than usual. Many media companies that rely heavily on advertising revenue are preparing for a difficult year as marketers begin to pull back on spending amid uncertainty around tariffs.
Some analysts believe, however, that Netflix is something close to recession-proof, and should be able to weather any economic tumult, a point that the company underscored. The company said in a Thursday letter to shareholders that its “revenue and profit growth outlook remains solid,” and that it was not making any changes to its forecast for the year.
Netflix’s co-chief executive Greg Peters said on the company’s earnings call that internal metrics — like subscriber retention and engagement — remained strong, and “things generally look stable.”
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“We also take some comfort in the fact that entertainment historically has been pretty resilient in tougher economic times,” he continued. “Netflix specifically also has been generally quite resilient, and we haven’t seen any major impacts during those tougher times.”
Netflix shares were up more than 2 percent in after-hours trading.
“Netflix will continue to be the default platform, and the last to be cut by the vast majority of users,” said John Conca, an analyst at Third Bridge.
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