Netflix Tops 66M Subscribers Worldwide

RELATED:Netflix Tosses in Support for Charter-TWC Deal

EARLIER:Netflix Earnings Preview: 5 Things to Watch | Analyst’s Questions for Netflix Go to 11

Netflix beat its earnings-per-share forecasts and posted much better than expected subscriber numbers in the second quarter, but turned in another quarter of negative cash flow as it continues to ramp up its international operations and spend heavily on new programming.

Netflix reported earnings of about 6 cents a share for Q2, better than the consensus of analysts, who were expecting about 4 cents per share (or 30 to 31 cents a share before the seven-for-one stock split that took effect July 15). Management had forecast around 26 cents prior to the stock split.

Overall, paid members grew to 42.51 million in the U.S. and hit 66.61 million worldwide.

Revenue for the quarter totaled $1.6 billion, higher than the $1.47 billion management had predicted but less than the $1.65 billion analysts had been forecasting.

Netflix management had predicted it would gain about 2.5 million net additional subs in Q2 and handily beat that forecast with 3.55 million net additional subscribers.

The subscriber growth result was notable because the second quarter is typically a slow one for Netflix; for example, in Q2 2014 the OTT service had only 1.7 million adds.

Read more at broadcastingcable.com.