Netflix on Wednesday gave its investors something to cheer about: The streaming video and DVD-by-mail provider is growing again in the United States.
In its fourth-quarter earnings, the company revealed wooing 220,000 new domestic streaming subscriptions to end the calendar year with 21.67 million customers.
Netflix added a total of 610,00 U.S. customers in a significant turnaround from the prior quarter when the company lost 810,000 customers following a 60 percent price hike on its joint DVD-streaming package.
"We are encouraged by the strength in acquisition that we are seeing, coupled with continued improvements in retention among our domestic streaming members," Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and CFO David Wells wrote in a letter to shareholders.
It wasn't all roses for Netflix. The Los Gatos, Calif.-based company lost 2.76 million DVD customers to end the three-month period with 11.17 million members.
Netflix, however, continued to grow its streaming video business outside the United States by courting 380,000 customers. Netflix now has 1.86 million global subscriptions (outside the U.S.), with most of those coming from Canada. Netflix last fall launched operations in 43 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the company commenced offering service earlier this month in Ireland and the United Kingdom. Netflix said its European launch is seeing better initial results than when it introduced service in Canada.
Latin America represents is an enormous market for Netflix given its broadband population, but Netflix cautioned that it faces several challenges in the region as well. Those challenges include "low device penetration, high piracy, varying preferences for subtitles, and relatively low credit card usage for ecommerce," Hastings and Wells wrote. "We are quickly learning what content works best in the region, and are adjusting our content library accordingly."
