Netflix ( NFLX ) stock nabbed a closing record on Tuesday, finishing the day up more than 1% to trade just under $699 a share. The stock's previous record close was just below $692 in 2021.
Earlier in the session, the stock also hit an intraday record of $711 a share, ahead of its prior $701 intraday high.
On Tuesday, the company again touted its push into the ad market, revealing in a company blog post it secured "a 150% plus increase in upfront ad sales commitments over 2023."
Netflix's successful upfront negotiations, a time when networks and media companies pitch to secure ad commitments for upcoming series and events, comes as the platform leans into live sports and doubles down on its biggest shows.
Upcoming movies and series like "Happy Gilmore 2" and "Squid Game 2," along with the recent acquisition of live sports content like the NFL Christmas Day games and WWE Raw , which will kick off in January 2024, helped fueled the success, according to the company.
"Our advertising clients remain excited about our highly engaged audience and the variety and quality of our programming," said Amy Reinhard, president of advertising at Netflix.
Reinhard cited ad partners that include LVMH, Amazon, Hilton, L’Oreal, and Google, among others. The company will launch its in-house ad tech platform globally in 2025.
But it's not just advertising that's fueling the recent rally.
Analysts have also said the company is well-positioned to hike prices. Netflix last raised the price of its Standard plan in January 2022 , upping the monthly cost to $15.49 from $13.99. It also raised the price of its Premium tier by $2 to $19.99 a month at the time; the company again raised the cost of that plan in October to $22.99.
The company has yet to raise the price of its ad-supported offering , introduced less than two years ago, which remains one of the cheapest ad plans among all of the major streaming players at $6.99 a month.
Netflix has previously said its goal is to make ads "a more substantial revenue stream that contributes to sustained, healthy revenue growth in 2025 and beyond." It will phase out its lowest-priced ad-free streaming plan as a result, making the $15.49 Standard plan its cheapest offering for an ad-free experience.
In a note published earlier this month, Jefferies analyst James Heaney said the Standard plan will likely be the one hit with a December price hike, especially given the company's foray into sports — a move that further "increases [its] pricing power."
"We believe NFLX has been positioning itself throughout this year for a year-end price hike," Heaney said. "We view the venture into NFL games (at just ~2% of annual content spend) as a significant Q4 subscriber driver, creating a further tailwind to NFLX's password sharing initiative and supporting a price hike."
In last month's earnings release , Netflix said it's making "steady progress scaling [its] ad business" with ad-tier memberships growing 34% quarter on quarter, boosted in part by the removal of the basic plan in certain markets.
"Given this sustained progress, we believe that we’re on track to achieve critical ad subscriber scale for advertisers in our ad countries in 2025, creating a strong base from which we can further increase our ad membership in 2026 and beyond," the company said.
Alexandra Canal @allie_canal , LinkedIn,
