Netflix Tops 3 Million DVD-by-mail Subscribers

Netflix ended the first quarter of 2005 with approximately 3,018,000 total subscribers to its DVD-by-mail service, representing 56 percent year-over-year growth from 1,932,000 total subscribers at the end of the first quarter of 2004 and 16 percent sequential growth from 2,610,000 subscribers at the end of the fourth quarter of 2004.


Of the 3,018,000 total subscribers at quarter end, 96 percent or 2,887,000 were paid subscribers. The other 4 percent, or 131,000, were free subscribers. Paid subscribers represented 95 percent of total subscribers at the ends of both the first quarter of 2004 and the fourth quarter of 2004.


Household penetration in the San Francisco Bay Area rose to 9.8 percent of households at the end of the first quarter of 2005, up from 7.2 percent at the end of the first quarter of 2004 and 9.0 percent at the end of the fourth quarter of 2004. Overall household penetration outside the Bay Area reached 2.6 percent at the end of the first quarter of 2005, up from 1.7 percent at the end of the first quarter of 2004 and 2.3 percent at the end of the fourth quarter of 2004.


Subscriber acquisition cost for Q1 was $37.89 per gross subscriber addition compared to $35.12 for the same period of 2004 and $36.18 for Q4 2004.


Churn for the first quarter of 2005 was 5.0 percent, compared to 4.7 percent for the first quarter of 2004 and 4.4 percent for the fourth quarter of 2004.


Revenue for Q1 2005 was $154.1 million. GAAP net loss was $8.8 million, or $0.17 per share.
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