Netflix announced its earnings for the third quarter of 2012 today, revealing that the streaming company has posted a slim but growing profit for the second quarter in a row. Netflix saw $8 million in profit for the third quarter, on $905 million in total revenue. The movie streaming and rental service also saw stronger growth in both domestic and international streaming subscriptions than it did for the previous quarter.
Netflix added 1.16 million new streaming customers in the third quarter, along with 690,000 international streaming subscriptions. The company now boasts 29.31 million total streaming subscriptions, of which 25.1 million are based in the United States.
Netflix’s domestic streaming arm contributed $556 million to the company’s revenues for the quarter, while the international arm contributed $78 million. The international arm’s $92 million in losses, though, negated the domestic sector’s $91 million in profit.
The international arm’s continuing losses are due to the fact that Netflix continues to expand its international operations. The streaming service just launched in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden last week, its fourth regional launch. Those Nordic members are not included in Netflix’s Q3 results, as they were added after the quarter ended.
Were Netflix’s revenues only to include its streaming operations, the company would have posted a loss. As it stands, though, its domestic DVD rental division posted $131 million in profit on $231 million in revenue. The DVD rental unit continued to shed subscribers, losing 630,000 over the last three months. That loss rate, though, is about 20 percent lower than the quarter previous, and it is only a quarter what the service lost in the fourth quarter of 2011.
Discussing the results, Netflix representatives noted that membership satisfaction is very high according to per-member viewing, which was up 30 percent year-over-year, and the voluntary churn rate, which Netflix says is the lowest it has ever been.
