By
Mayowa Adebajo
February 13th, 2024
Netflix (NFLX) stock rose by over 8% following an upgrade to outperform from neutral by Baird Equity Research. The firm said the rise of cord-cutting could be compounded through the coronavirus crisis and provide a bigger boost to Netflix.
American media-services provider Netflix Inc (NASDAQ: NFLX) has decided to prove its superiority over traditional television players. The moment is more than favorable, as the company is enjoying a surge in usage, which makes it one of the beneficiaries in coronavirus pandemic. Netflix’s rising mercury is reflected in its stock which is showing good performance. On Monday, Netflix (NFLX) stock rose while the overall market was down.
Yesterday, Netflix (NFLX) stock rose 8.24% to close at $360.27. During after-hours trading, the price remained the same. The day before, Netflix shares closed at $332.83. Netflix market cap makes up $158 billion.
Monday’s surge followed an upgrade of the stock. Recently, Baird analyst William Power upgraded the stock to outperform from neutral. As he explained, subscriber growth suggests that the streaming-media company is taking significant advantage of the coronavirus outbreak.
Baird analysts said:
“We view NFLX as one of the preeminent stay-at-home winners, with the current environment enabling it to widen its global lead. Our quarterly survey checks support strong subscriber growth, which could be a near-term catalyst and should provide additional revenue leverage.”
William Power added:
“Netflix’s view that it continues to take share from linear TV never looked truer. While not surprising given COVID-19 impacts, our survey results and other checks suggest strong current subscriber trends. Whereas we had previously been concerned with pricing power due to new entrants like Disney DIS, -0.25%, Apple AAPL, -2.12%, etc., we believe the narrative could shift towards greater revenue leverage from subscriber upside.”
According to Power, the price target of Netflix stock will rise to 415 from 350.
Notably, the company’s stock is rising alongside with the number of users. At the end of 2019, Netflix had 167.1 million global video subscribers, 20% up from a year earlier. 61.2 million subscribers were just in the US.
Netflix to Reduce Traffic
On March 21, Netflix announced its plans to lower its bandwidth consumption in Europe. As the European Union asked companies like Netflix, Amazon, and YouTube to ensure efficient using telecommunications networks, Netflix came up with a way to reduce its traffic on these networks by 25%. The company believes the move will reduce stress on telecommunications networks there.
As Italy and Spain were experiencing the biggest impact, they are the first countries where the traffic strain will be reduced. However, this does not mean the quality of Netflix’s services will degrade. On the opposite, the company is promising to maintain the quality users have paid for.
At this point, Netflix is starting in Europe. For other networks, it will keep its normal procedures, until there are issues of their own.