'Squid Game Effect' Netflix, 2Q Performance Exceeds Expectations.. "Korean Content Continues to be Popular"

The world's largest content streaming company, Netflix, announced on the 17th (local time) that it has released performance results for the second quarter of this year, slightly exceeding market expectations, and that Korean content continues to be popular with global viewers.
According to the performance report released by Netflix on this day, second-quarter revenue increased by 15.9% compared to the same period last year, reaching 11.079 billion dollars (approximately 15.44 trillion won), and earnings per share (EPS) recorded 7.19 dollars. Both revenue and EPS exceeded the average expectations of Wall Street compiled by financial information company LSEG (revenue 11.07 billion dollars, EPS 7.08 dollars).
The operating profit margin for the second quarter was 34.1%, up 2.4 percentage points from the previous quarter (31.7%) and 6.9 percentage points from the same period last year (27.2%). Operating profit increased by 45% year-on-year to 3.775 billion dollars. Netflix also announced that it is raising its annual revenue forecast for this year from the previous level of 43.5 billion to 44.5 billion dollars to 44.8 billion to 45.2 billion dollars.
This upward adjustment reflects the recent weakness of the dollar, solid subscriber growth, and advertising sales performance, the company explained. However, it predicted that the operating profit margin in the second half of the year would be lower than in the first half due to content amortization costs and operating and marketing expenses related to large-scale works scheduled to be released in the second half.
Netflix cited 'Squid Game' Season 3 and the animated film 'K-Pop Demon Hunters' as major achievements among the works released in the second quarter.
Based on the viewing records for 91 days after the first release, Netflix announced that 'Squid Game' Season 3 recorded 122 million views, and 'K-Pop Demon Hunters' recorded 80 million views. 'Squid Game' Season 3 has only been released for a few weeks, but it has set the sixth-highest viewing record in Netflix history across all series, the company emphasized.
'K-Pop Demon Hunters' is one of the most successful animated films produced by Netflix so far, and it emphasized that songs like 'Golden' included in the movie soundtrack are setting new records for K-pop like BTS and Blackpink.
Netflix stated, "Korean content continues to be popular with our viewers," and added that "besides 'Squid Game', 'Weak Hero: Class 2' (20 million views), 'Square' (18 million views), and 'Your Taste' (15 million views) were among the most popular Korean series released in the second quarter."
However, it mentioned upcoming anticipated releases for the second half, such as Wednesday Series 2 and Stranger Things, but did not mention any Korean works.
On this day, Netflix's stock price on the New York Stock Exchange closed at 1,274.17 dollars, up 1.91% from the previous day, and in after-hours trading, it traded at 1,252.00 dollars, down 1.74% as of 6 PM (Eastern Time). Netflix's stock price has risen by about 43% this year up to this day. The company mentioned during the fourth-quarter earnings announcement last year that the number of paid subscribers worldwide was 301.63 million and stated that it would not disclose subscriber numbers from this year.

solidkjy@fnnews.com Koo Ja-yun Reporter