The most extensive streaming service globally, Netflix has gained 15.8 million paying customers from January through March, bringing its global total to 182.9 million.
Netflix had predicted it would add 7 million during the period.
The company’s executives said it expected fewer new subscribers from July to December compared with a year earlier.
“We expect viewing to decline and membership growth to decelerate as home confinement ends.”
The company is among the few businesses to benefit from government orders imposed in March to keep people away from each other to stop the spread of Coronavirus.
It has also issued a bullish forecast that it would add 7.5 million new customers for the current quarter, which ends in June.
Though, the company said it was mostly guesswork given uncertainty over when stay-at-home orders might be lifted.
According to a senior analyst at investing.com, Haris Anwar, Netflix’s significant gains showed it is the ultimate stay-at-home stock.
Meanwhile, he added that there is no guarantee that a global recession and increased competition would not hit the company in the latter part of the year.
“There is little clarity from the company about the future, and that’s likely to hurt the stock in the short run.”
Meanwhile, Netflix said the shutdown of film and TV production around the world had temporarily increased its free cash flow but could delay some programming by a quarter.
The company said, the impact would be modest and mostly would affect dubbing in various languages the second quarter.
In an interview, the Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos said most programming for 2020, and much of 2021 has been filmed and is being finished remotely in post-production.
Meanwhile, Company’s Chief Product Officer, Greg Peters said Netflix does not currently plan to raise its prices given the global pandemic.