Netflix Boosts Projections, but Investors Hate Its Q2 Revenue Miss

A first crack at Netflix’s Q2 earnings: The movie rental company recorded revenue of $520 million and earnings per share of $0.80. I don’t believe that latter number includes any one-time charges, which would mean it represents a big beat: The Street was looking for $524 million and $0.70 a share. But investors are bummed out about the revenue miss, and they’re pushing the stock down nine percent.

Netflix (NFLX) said it ended the quarter with 15 million subscribers, which is up 42 percent year-over-year and up 7 percent from Q1. It’s more or less in line with what analysts expected.

The company says it expects to end the year with somewhere between 17.7 million and 18.5 million subs, which is an increase from the 16.5 million to 17.3 million range it had previously provided.

But it’s barely touching its previous revenue guidance: It projects $2.14 billion to $2.16 billion, just a tiny bit more than the $2.11 billion to $2.16 billion it had previously talked about. Dan Frommer calls this one: The conclusion is that customers are opting for cheaper subscription options.

Here’s the company’s color-coded summary of its quarter (click this and other images to enlarge): It would like you to focus on the blue and yellow lines, but for now investors seem to be punishing it for the orange one:

And here’s Mark Mahaney’s cheat sheet so you can play along at home:

And the rest of Netflix’s Q2 charts:

netflix q2 slides