A Wall Street analyst who was on the sidelines of Netflix stock during its big run-up in the past year has finally turned bullish on the streaming video leader.
Bernstein analyst Laurent Yoon upgraded Netflix stock to outperform, or buy, from market perform, or neutral. He also raised his price target to 1,200 from 975.
On the stock market today, Netflix stock dipped 0.7% to close at 977.59.
In a client note Friday, Yoon said he believes he's "still not late to the party."
"There are more questions than answers about the key drivers of long-term growth for Netflix (e.g., sports, advertising, gaming), but what we do know gives us sufficient confidence for a much-delayed upgrade, even at the current price point," Yoon said.
Yoon believes another year of double-digit subscriber growth is achievable in 2025, driven by international markets. He predicted that Netflix could pass 330 million subscribers worldwide this year, up from 301.6 million at the end of 2024.
"There are plenty of eyeballs left to entertain," Yoon said. "Netflix's expansion of local-language content has been a critical driver of subscriber penetration in key-non-anglophone markets."
On a conference call with analysts, Netflix executives noted that the company only captures about 6% of the revenue opportunity in the countries it serves.
Netflix stock jumped this week after the internet television network beat estimates for the fourth quarter. It added 18.91 million new subscribers in Q4, topping the consensus estimate of 10.18 million.
Netflix stock is on three IBD lists: Big Cap 20, Stock Spotlight and SwingTrader.
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