{"id":695789,"date":"2026-07-17T00:55:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T00:55:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/695789\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T00:55:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T00:55:17","slug":"netflix-q2-earnings-results-in-line-with-expectations-stock-drops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/695789\/","title":{"rendered":"Netflix Q2 Earnings Results In-Line With Expectations, Stock Drops"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAs investors fret that Netflix<\/a>\u2018s viewer-engagement metrics are flagging, the streaming giant reported earnings for the second quarter of 2026 that were in line with Wall Street forecasts. But it issued weaker-than-expected guidance for Q3, driving the stock price down.<\/p>\n

\n\tNetflix reported Q2 revenue of $12.56 billion, up 13.4% year over year, and net income of $3.4 billion (translating to 80 cents per share). On average, Wall Street analysts expected $12.59 billion and earnings per share of 79 cents, according to LSEG Data & Analytics. Operating margin for Q2 came in at 33.4%, down from 34.1% in the year-earlier period.<\/p>\n

\n\tFor Q3, Netflix said it expects revenue growth of 11.7% to $12.86 billion \u2014 undershooting analyst estimates, which had pegged the number at around $13 billion. The streamer projected an operating margin of 33.2% for the September 2026 quarter (vs. 28.2% in the year ago quarter).<\/p>\n

\n\tShares of Netflix dropped as much as 9% in after-hours trading Thursday to their lowest levels in more than a year.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe company said that viewing hours grew 2% in the first half of 2026 \u2014 an improvement over the 1.5% growth in the comparable period in 2025, \u201cdespite the competitive impact of the Winter Olympics and the World Cup this year.\u201d On Thursday, Netflix released its \u201cWhat We Watched\u201d report for the first half of 2026, which it has released twice yearly. Going forward, Netflix \u201cwill shift to publishing this report annually in the first quarter, beginning in 2027.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tPer the company\u2019s letter to shareholders: \u201cThe goal of separating the publication of the report from our earnings results is to keep the focus on our primary financial metrics -\u2013 revenue and operating profit. With this change, we will still report industry-leading title-by-title and total view hours data (including our weekly Top 10 lists for movies and series in more than 90 countries).\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRELATED: Netflix to Stop Releasing Viewership Data Every 6 Months, Will Shift to Annual Reports<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOverall, our engagement remains healthy and as with all things we do, we\u2019re working hard to improve every day,\u201d Netflix said.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe company said its ads business is still on track to deliver approximately $3 billion in revenue in 2026. Netflix said its U.S. upfront negotiations are in \u201cadvanced stages, and we expect commitments to close in the next few weeks.\u201d It said there has been strong interest in its live programming lineup, including the 2027 FIFA Women\u2019s World Cup, an expanded NFL slate, WWE and MLB events.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn the live-programming front, Netflix said that this year live programming is expected to account for just over 5% of its content spend \u2014 but only about 1% of view hours. That said, live event programming accounted for six of the top 10 new member sign-up days over the last five years (and, Netflix noted, it only began streaming live events since 2023).<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Q2 results reflect recent price increases at Netflix, including for its three plans in the U.S., marking its second price hike in a little over a year<\/a>. The company said the results of the recent price changes \u201care consistent with prior changes and our expectations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFor full-year 2026, Netflix narrowed its projected revenue range to $51.0 billion-$51.4 billion (which is within its previous range) and kept its expected operating margin unchanged at 31.5%.<\/p>\n

\n\tMeanwhile, on April 22, Netflix\u2019s board authorized the repurchase of an additional $25 billion<\/a> of common stock, in a bid to boost the share price. CFO Spence Neumann said Netflix bought back about $4.7 billion of its own stock in the quarter, its largest quarter of share repurchases, and the company currently has $27.1 billion left in its remaining buyback authorizations.<\/p>\n

\n\tSEE ALSO: About 300 Netflix Programs Used Generative AI This Year, Company Reveals<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tPictured above (l. to r.): Louis Partridge as Tewkesbury, Millie Bobby Brown as Enola Holmes, Himesh Patel as Dr. Watson in Netflix\u2019s \u201cEnola Homes 3\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As investors fret that Netflix\u2018s viewer-engagement metrics are flagging, the streaming giant reported earnings for the second quarter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":695790,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84,59,231300,392,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-695789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-gb","tag-media-earnings","tag-netflix","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=695789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/695790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=695789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=695789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=695789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}