Business

Netflix streaming sales top $1 billion

14:31 pm on 22 April 2014

Video streaming service Netflix added about 4 million new customers world-wide in the three months ended March and streaming sales topped $US1 billion.

Netflix accounts for more than half of the videos streamed over the internet.

About 48 million people around the world have signed up to its video-on-demand service so far and producing its own series like House of Cards and Orange is the New Black have given it an edge.

Net income rose by $50 million to $53 million for the period, compared with the March quarter last year.

The company plans to raise the monthly subscription price for new customers by a few American dollars a month to help it buy more movies and TV shows and improve the service.

But Amazon Prime, Tesco Blinkbox, and Google Play are all jostling for space in the fast-growing market.

The BBC's Samira Hussain says a lot of people are cutting their cable and using Netflix as their main source of entertainment.

Investors welcomed the announcement by Netflix, which suffered from a consumer exodus and stock plunge after it announced an unpopular price increase in July 2011.

The company's shares jumped 6.7 percent in after-hours trading to $371.97.