Netflix Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX) has turned a Wall Street analyst fan into an even larger fan. Oppenheimer’s Jason Helfstein has maintained an Outperform rating on Netflix on Monday, but the price target has been raised to $500 from $435 in the call.
We figured this would be the highest call of all analyst price targets, but there is an analyst price target up at $525. That was from Needham back in late February.
Oppenheimer’s Helfstein sees the main driver here as the company’s international opportunity ahead. Earnings targets have been put at $5.96 per share for 2014 and $10.18 per share for 2015. That would generate P/E multiples of 70 for 2014 and 41 for 2015.
Oppenheimer sees 6 million subscribers in Canada by 2020. And if you use a 50% market penetration among its global target markets, then the global streaming subscribers of Netflix could reach 255 million.
Helfstein said:
We are updating our long-term International subscriber forecasts to reflect specific country assumptions, and provide an upside analysis based on higher broadband penetration. As a result, we are increasing our price target to $500 from $435, which implies 20% upside potential from current levels. We estimate US and Canada penetration levels are currently 44% and 34%, respectively. Using the growth of penetration in Canada, which increased from 0% in 2011 to 10% in 2012 and an estimated 34% today, we are assuming 30% average international penetration in 2020. Our prior model only went out to 2018.
Netflix shares closed at $417.83 on Friday, and the stock was up about 1% around $422.25 in midday trading on Monday. Its shares have traded in a range of $205.75 to $458.00 over the past 12 months. We urge investors to keep in mind that the consensus price target is roughly $410, according to Thomson Reuters.
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