Netflix (NFLX) Earnings Preview: What To Expect In Fourth Quarter Release Wednesday

RTX2P3F7 — Netflix shattered investors' expectations for the third quarter, and is on track to stick with that growth pattern, according to analysts. Above, the Netflix logo was photographed on an iPad in Encinitas, California, April 19, 2013. Reuters

President-elect Donald Trump’s supporters may have urged a boycott of the streaming service behemoth Netflix Inc. in November, but investors don’t expect anything close to a drop in revenues for the company’s fourth quarter 2016 earnings report, to be released Wednesday after market close.

Finance data and research company FactSet forecast earnings per share of 13 cents, a 30 percent rise over last year’s fourth quarter and an 8 percent increase over 2016’s third quarter earnings per share. As MarketWatch noted, the Los Gatos, California, company’s earnings have beaten FactSet’s estimates eight of the previous 10 quarters.

Analysts at Zacks Investment Research also expected earnings of 13 cents per share, with total streaming revenues hitting $2.34 billion.

Netflix’s third quarter results soared over investors’ predictions, with 12 cents per share on revenues of $2.16 billion, twice expectations of 6 cents per share.

Since then, the company has said it would double its highly popular original content offerings in 2017 as part of its effort to veer away from becoming a sort of library for old shows and movies and instead become a go-to place for exclusive programming.

In its third quarter earnings release, Netflix attributed its higher-than-expected earnings to the success of original shows like “Stranger Things” and “Narcos,” and promised “1,000 hours of premium original programming, up from 600 hours this year” in 2017.

Another big driver of company growth, noted in the previous earnings report, was international expansion, something that has steadily continued since the October release. At the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show, Netflix co-founder and CEO Reed Hastings announced in a keynote speech the streaming service had expanded to an additional 130 countries as of the first week of January.

The company’s stock has spiked upward since Friday, when it opened at nearly $132 per share after closing at around $129 Thursday, capping off two months of general share price growth.