Netflix Is On The Verge Of Doing Something It Has Never Done Before

It’s not hard to believe that with the success of digital streaming, that Netflix would be close to surpassing 100 million global subscribers soon.

If projections are correct, the company is set to achieve this milestone this coming weekend.

Netflix made the prediction on Monday when it released first quarter earnings. For the first three months of 2017, the company added almost 5 million subscribers and ended March with 98.7 million customers in roughly 190 countries. Nearly 48 million of the subscribers were outside of the United States.

The company earned $178 million on revenue of $2.6 billion in the first quarter. Analysts predict Netflix will make $482 million on revenue of more than $11 billion for the entire year.

Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter said, “What really did it for Netflix was the explosion of phones and tablets that allowed people to watch video everywhere.”

“But Netflix clearly had a vision before those devices became so ubiquitous.”

Piper Jaffray analyst Michael Olson expects the majority of the company’s subscribers to be overseas by the end of 2017.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings expects the next 100 million subscribers to come more quickly than the first 100 million and said, “Everybody watches TV and nearly everybody has the internet, so I don’t see anything that’s going to stop Netflix from getting to most people in the United States and then eventually hopefully most people around the world.”

After earnings, Netflix stock rose $1.90 in after hours trading on Monday.

Disclaimer: We have no position in Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX) and have not been compensated for this article.