18 Apr No Netflix Subscriber Numbers? No Problem for Wall Street As Analysts Raise Stock Targets [The Hollywood Reporter]
BY GEORG SZALAI
April 18, 2025 | The atmosphere and focus were very different as streaming giant Netflix unveiled its first-quarter 2025 results after the stock market close on Thursday. There was, as the company has been planning for a year, no update on subscriber growth or figures, but instead more management emphasis on financial trends.
Wall Street analysts, several of whom have recently come out touting Netflix as a safer, “defensive” stock amid recession fears, have now reacted to what they read and heard in the latest earnings update. And the tenor is mostly positive, thanks to advertising revenue upside and confidence that financial forecasts and stock price targets have still been too low.
Netflix management, led by co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters, touted in an earnings call such original hits as Adolescence and season 2 of The Night Agent. And analysts liked their commentary.
“Consistent Execution” is how Guggenheim analyst Michael Morris summarized his takeaways from the first-quarter earnings update. While maintaining his “buy” rating, he boosted his stock price target by $50 to $1,150 on higher financial projections. “Solid first-quarter results were headlined by profitability beat (both operating and net income) with outperformance benefiting from revenue ahead of the company’s guidance (in-line with our above-consensus forecast) and expense timing,” he wrote. “Second-quarter guidance was similarly ahead of our/consensus prior estimates.”
And Morris touted broader upside. “We continue to see opportunity to grow members with management noting they ‘still have hundreds of millions of folks to sign up’ with the service comprising less than 10 percent of TV hours and around 6 percent of consumer spend/ad revenue,” the expert emphasized. “Leadership highlighted positive ad indicators heading into the upfront, with minimal observed impact from macro headwinds to date.”
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