Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Netflix Tumbles

I like this guy, so:

Remember when Netflix raised their subscriber fees and split off their DVD mail-order services, and customers said they would boycott the company? Yeah, it seems they followed through on their words:
Shares in the once-hot but recently troubled subscription video company plummeted 27% in after-hours trading Monday after it reported a loss of 800,000 U.S. customers in the third quarter, more than the 600,000 it told investors to expect.
The stock had found some support after the price hike and the splitting of its streaming and DVD businesses:

For a while, Netflix seemed like the hot name, but it's taken an absolute beating. Reed Hastings, the CEO and graduate of my high school, is still optimistic:
“Pausing is a good thing from an investor standpoint,” Chief Executive Officer Reed Hasting said in an interview. “We are going to pause and restore our global profitability.”
Analysts don't believe it's the end of the world for the company, even though it has lost 2/3rds of its shareholder value:
"If they stop making mistakes, this is fixable," said Dan Rayburn, a principal analyst at consulting firm Frost & Sullivan. "The saving grace is that unlike a lot of other companies that get into this kind of situation, there isn't a competitor eating Netflix's lunch."
I tend to agree. They really don't have much competition and while this is a setback, they will continue to grow their business as they increase their content. They expect to have double the content and as long as it is relevant to subscriber interests, they should be fine. I'm not saying that it's time to buy NFLX. I'm not sure it has felt the entire wrath of the market yet. I do think there is potential for the company to bounce back once it gets back on solid footing.

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