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2021 Q1 NFLX Earnings BLUE ROOM TM Newsletter Number XXVI April 24, 2021 F2021 Q1 Earnings: April 20, 2021 By Nick Peart Netflix, Inc. 100 Winchester Circle Los Gatos, California 95032 Ticker: NFLX Market Capitalization: $224 Billion Shares Outstanding: 445,641,000 Share Price History April 12, 2021 $552.78 April 13, 2021 $553.73 April 14, 2021 $540.02 April 15, 2021 $549.22 April 16, 2021 $546.22 April 19, 2021 $554.44 April 20, 2021 $549.57 April 21, 2021 $508.90 ← -7.4% day after Q1 ‘21 Financial Results released April 22, 2021 $508.78 April 23, 2021 $505.55 Corporate Profile: Netflix, Inc. provides entertainment services. It offers TV series, documentaries, and feature films across various genres and languages. The company provides members the ability to receive streaming content through a host of internet-connected devices, including TVS, digital video players, television set-top boxes, and mobile devices. It also provides DVDs-by-mail membership services. The company has approximately 207 million paid members in 190 countries. Netflix, Inc. was founded in 1997 and is headquartered in Los Gatos California. BLUE ROOM TM Newsletter Number XXVI April 24, 2021 F2021 Q1 Earnings: April 20, 2021 Q1 2020 Earnings: Revenue: $5.768 B Net Income: $709 M Diluted EPS: $1.57 per share Global Streaming Paid Memberships: 182.86 M Q1 2021 Earnings Estimate via Zacks: Revenue Estimate: $7.14 B Diluted EPS Estimate: $2.98 per share Global Streaming Paid Memberships Estimate: 210.0 M Webcast Earnings Press Release Actual Q1 2021 Earnings: Revenue: $7.163 B (24% YoY increase compared to Q1 2020) Net Income: $1.707 B (141% YoY increase compared to Q1 2020) Diluted EPS: $3.75 per share Global Streaming Paid Memberships: 207.64 M (14% increase YoY, missed expectations) Q2 2021 Financial Forecast: Revenue: $7.302 B Net Income: $1.441 B Diluted EPS: $3.16 per share Global Streaming Paid Memberships: 208.64 M “Revenue grew 24% year over year and was in line with our beginning of quarter forecast, while operating profit and margin reached all-time highs. We finished Q1’21 with 208m paid memberships, up 14% year over year, but below our guidance forecast of 210m paid memberships. We believe paid membership growth slowed due to the big Covid-19 pull forward in 2020 and a lighter content slate in the first half of this year, due to Covid-19 production delays. We continue to anticipate a strong second half with the return of new seasons of some of our biggest hits and an exciting film lineup. In the short-term, there is some uncertainty from Covid-19; in the long-term, the rise of streaming to replace linear TV around the world is the clear trend in entertainment.” BLUE ROOM TM Newsletter Number XXVI April 24, 2021 F2021 Q1 Earnings: April 20, 2021 Takeaways: - Netflix’s missed its previous forecast of 6.3 million net new memberships in Q1, gaining only 3.98 million (missed by 37%) - Netflix’s projection for Global Memberships in Q2 of this year is still below the 210 million target, and implies the company only expects to add 1 million net new memberships — the lowest net additions on record for the company — demonstrating a dramatic slowdown in growth - Executives attribute the slowdown to COVID pandemic; content production was delayed and fewer consumers will sign up as vaccine rollout progresses in combination with seasonality - Paid membership growth expected to re-accelerate in the second half of 2021 as Netflix ramps into a very strong back half slate with the return of big hits - Churn levels were below Q1 ‘20 levels, which is a good sign - Netflix estimates it retains only 10% of TV screen time in the US, and even less in international regions — offering a large opportunity for continued expansion - Netflix is on track to achieve free cash flow breakeven this year, and close to achieving free cash flow positive which will no longer require them to raise external financing to fund operations BLUE ROOM TM Newsletter Number XXVI April 24, 2021 F2021 Q1 Earnings: April 20, 2021 Key Business Highlights and Financial Metrics Content: - Expected to spend over $17 billion in cash on content in 2021 - Producing content safely in every major market, except Brazil and India (due to COVID) - Continuing to create locally authentic content - Top Q1 Series: - Firefly Lane (49 million viewers in first 28 days) - Cobra Kai Season 3 (45 M) - Fate: The Winx Saga (57 M) - Ginny and Georgia (52 M) - Top Q1 Films: - I Care A Lot (56 M) - YES DAY (62 M) - Outside the Wire (66 M) - To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before part 3 (51 M) - Top Q1 International Content: - Lupin - France (76 M) - Who Killed Sara? - Mexico (55 M) - Below Zero - Spain (47 M) - Squared Love - Poland (31 M) - Space Sweepers - Korea (26 M) Cash Flow and Capital Structure: - Net Cash generated by operating activities in Q1 was $777 million (vs $260 million in Q1 ‘20) - Free cash flow for Q1 was $692 million (vs $162 million in Q1 ‘20) - On track to be free cash flow breakeven for full year 2021, and close to being sustainably free cash flow positive - Total gross debt is $15.7 billion as of March 31, 2021 - Netflix intends to maintain $10 - $15 billion in total gross debt - Share repurchase program of up to $5 billion expected to begin in Q2 ‘21 BLUE ROOM TM Newsletter Number XXVI April 24, 2021 F2021 Q1 Earnings: April 20, 2021 Regional Breakdown: United States and Canada (UCAN) Revenue: $3.171 M Paid Memberships: 74.38 M Paid Net Additions: 0.45 M Avg. Monthly Revenue Per Membership: $14.25 (9% increase YoY compared to Q1 ‘20) Europe, Middle East, and Asia (EMEA) Revenue: $2.344 M Paid Memberships: 68.51 M Paid Net Additions: 1.81 M Avg. Monthly Revenue Per Membership: $11.56 (11% increase YoY compared to Q1 ‘20) Latin America (LATAM) Revenue: $0.837 M Paid Memberships: 37.89 M Paid Net Additions: 0.36 M Avg. Monthly Revenue Per Membership: $7.39 (8% decrease YoY compared to Q1 ‘20) Asia-Pacific (APAC) Revenue: $0.762 M Paid Memberships: 26.85 M Paid Net Additions: 1.36 M Avg. Monthly Revenue Per Membership: $9.71 (9% increase YoY compared to Q1 ‘20) BLUE ROOM TM Newsletter Number XXVI April 24, 2021 F2021 Q1 Earnings: April 20, 2021 Earnings Q&A Interview Transcript Call participants: Nidhi Gupta — Fidelity Investments, Portfolio Manager Spencer Wang — VP of IR and Corporate Development Spencer Neumann — Chief Financial Officer Reed Hastings — Co-Chief Executive Officer Greg Peters — Chief Operating Officer and Chief Product Officer Ted Sarandos — Co-Chief Executive Officer and Chief Content Officer Spencer Wang, VP of IR: Good afternoon, and welcome to the Netflix Q1 2021 earnings interview. I'm Spencer Wang, VP of IR and corporate development. Joining me today are Co-CEO Reed Hastings, Co-CEO and Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos, COO and Chief Product Officer Greg Peters, and CFO Spence Neumann. Our interviewer this quarter is Nidhi Gupta from Fidelity. As a reminder, we'll be making forward-looking statements, and actual results may vary. With that, let me turn it over to Nidhi for her first question. Nidhi Gupta, Fidelity: Thanks, Spencer. Thank you all for having me. Great to be with you. And thank you all for all the great work over the years. It's been great for us to be on this journey with our shareholders. So with that, let's just jump right in. Obviously, you know, you were comping a really big Q1 last year with 15 million net adds. The net adds this quarter came in below your expectations and below the Street's expectations. Any additional color you can provide on what caused this? Spencer Neumann, CFO: Hey, Nidhi. It's Spence. I guess I'll -- I'll take this one first. Hopefully -- hopefully you can see us, it looks like it's a little frozen maybe it's just frozen on our end. But look, so it turns -- in terms of Q1 performance, it really boils down to -- to COVID, frankly. As you know, the -- the extraordinary events I've covered have had a big impact on the world, continue to have a big impact on the world. And -- and for us, at a minimum, it creates just some -- some short-term kind of choppiness in some of the business trends that -- that we see in our business. BLUE ROOM TM Newsletter Number XXVI April 24, 2021 F2021 Q1 Earnings: April 20, 2021 So you know, in particular, we had a huge pull-forward in 2020 in terms of our subscriber additions, nearly 40 million paid net adds in -- in 2020. And we also have a near-global shutdown in production which we've been ramping safely and at scale through much of last year and into this year, but it did push some key title launches into the back -- kind of the back end of -- of this year. So the combination of those two things does create some noise it's -- it's -- it's super hard to -- to obviously kind of forecast quarterly subscribers in -- in a typical quarter for us and -- and particularly hard in this -- in this environment. In fact, on page two of our earnings letter, we show our actuals relative to forecasts which in our guide is our internal forecast for subscribers. And as you know, because it's -- it's our forecast that we're going to miss every quarter, it's just a matter of whether they're bigger or smaller misses.
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