Taking some of the luster off of Amazon's big announcement Monday that it's going to take its SVOD service out of Prime and go head-to-head with the market leader in video streaming, Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX) had some news of its own.
The Los Gatos, Calif. SVOD giant now has 81 million subscribers worldwide, having added 6.74 million new customers in the first quarter alone. The company's subscriber expansion has led to increased revenue, which was up 25 percent year over year to $1.96 billion. You can read all about Netflix's big first quarter in this report from TheVerge.
Meanwhile, speaking to investors, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings delivered some surprising news: The company, which had previously dismissed the idea of offering download options for video programming, is now considering it.
"We should keep an open mind on all this… as we expand around the world where we see an uneven set of networks, it's something we should keep an open mind about," Hastings said, according to tech blog BGR.
Netflix did warn investors, however, that slower growth lies ahead. The U.S. market, which accounts for 42 percent of the company's customer base, has become saturated, Netflix said. International territories should provide further expansion, but not as explosively as they have in recent months, when Netflix entered many new markets for the first time.