Netflix posted a first-quarter profit of $60.2 million on Monday and said it had added 3.3 million subscribers in the United States in three months’ time, its fastest rate of growth yet.
“It took us four years to get to 3.3 million subscribers,” Reed Hastings, the company’s chief executive, said in an interview Monday evening. “Now we did it in one quarter.”
Mr. Hastings said the online streaming business “is just racing ahead.” But earlier in the day, in a letter to shareholders, the company cautioned that its torrid pace of growth might be tempered in the months ahead. It said it expected to add 1.2 million to 2 million subscribers in the next three months. Netflix shares declined about 5 percent in after-hours trading.
Although some analysts were disappointed by Netflix’s outlook for the second quarter, its results in the first quarter were generally above expectations. At the end of the first quarter, Netflix had 22.8 million subscribers in the United States, giving it as big a footprint as the biggest American cable operator, Comcast, which reported 22.8 million subscribers at the end of last year.
That subscriber milestone was the best proof to date that Netflix has responded more quickly and more effectively than any other media company to customers’ demands for video-on-demand. Yet the milestone is largely symbolic because Comcast and Netflix do not directly compete; Comcast is available only in certain parts of the country, and Netflix is largely supplemental to the services provided by cable and satellite operators.
Still, the comparisons made by analysts underscored just how fast Netflix has picked up customers. Two years ago, it had 10 million customers and was largely a DVD-by-mail service; today it is a force in video streaming.
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