Netflix's Addressable Market In Question by Sterne Agee

Sterne Agee analyst, Arvind Bhatia, recently released a note reiterating Netflix’s NFLX neutral rating. Yesterday, Netflix reported higher than expected 2014 2Q earnings. 3Q guidance is also above expectations.

The amount of domestic and international subscribers, streaming, and revenue were all above the estimates for 2Q. According to Bhatia, Netflix did raise their price for new subscribers (by $1); however, this did not seem to affect subscriber growth.

3Q guidance for domestic and international subscribers, streaming, and revenue are all above estimates except for international revenue. Management at Netflix expects that their international markets remain on track to collectively reach profitability by 4Q.

Related: Bank of America Raises Price Target On Netflix Following Q2 Earnings

Bhatia notes that while Netflix does have a solid business model and high expectation for strong growth in upcoming years, the real question is, “what is the company's true addressable market worldwide?" Netflix Management has cited 700-800 million broadband households (including 200 million in China) as their addressable market. In the US where there are 90 million broadband households, they have guided its addressable market between 60-90 million versus the current amount of 36 million.

In Bhatia’s five-year model, domestic streaming subs is up to 67 million from 36 million and international streaming up to 48 million from 14 million. Bhatia says, “If we assume a forward P/E multiple of 25x to 30x in 2018, it would imply NFLX shares could be worth $575-$700 in four years.” Discounted back by a conservative rate of 10% annually, we can expect the stock to be between $400-$500 in 2015, which continues the neutral rating for Netflix.

Shares of Netflix were trading down (-1.32%) in pre-market hours around $446 on Tuesday, July 22.