Pacific Crest Believes Netflix Subscriber Estimates Are Too Conservative

Pacific Crest's Andy Hargreaves commented on Netflix, Inc. NFLX "conservative" subscriber estimates, previewing the company's earnings report expected to release on July 18, 2016.

The analyst acknowledged that Netflix's U.S. business was slowing, while "current penetration levels [remain] above 50 percent of broadband households, it would be nearly impossible for it not to." The slowdown, however, was widely anticipated and was "not a detriment to the business model or future growth potential," said Hargreaves.

Hargreaves believes "buy-side expectations for Q2 domestic net adds are below the company's guidance of 500,000, and believe buy-side expectations for Q3 domestic net adds are slightly below the consensus estimate of 780,000."

Related Link: Amazon's Cloud Services Could Add $1 Billion To Revenue, Says Pacific Crest

International Growth

"Internationally, we believe subscriber growth potential remains tremendous and can continue to fuel the beneficial cycle of content reinvestment that has separated Netflix from its competitors," said Hargreaves. Unlike buy-side expectations for domestic net adds, the Pacific Crest analyst thinks buy-side expected Q3 "international adds appear to be slightly below the consensus estimate of 2.9 million."

According to TipRanks.com, Hargreaves was among the better analysts covering Netflix having an average rate of return per recommendation of +17.5 percent. The analyst is ranked 183 out of 4,055 analysts.

At time of writing Netflix traded at $97.74, up 1.36 percent Thursday.