Cable giants like 21st Century Fox (FOX)and CBS may have aggressively upped their Internet streaming game in a bid to maintain its dominance over television—but it’s already too late, according to a Brean Capital analyst.
“We believe Netflix has created an unstoppable lead in the Internet TV business and is positioned to dominate the business long term,” wrote analyst Alan Gould, of Brean Capital, in a Monday note. Gould initiated coverage over steaming giant, Netflix (NFLX), with a “Buy” rating and a price target of $145—a 24% upside to the stock’s valuation as of noon.
Based on Gould’s analysis, Netflix is projected to increase its subscriber base from 86.7 million to 300 million in 15 years as it gains a secure foothold in international markets. The steady growth in subscribers will be in part thanks to the company’s massive spending on content—$25 billion annually in 10 years based on Brean’s projections—which will act as a “content moat” against competition.
While that spending figure is intimidating, Gould argues that Netflix will be a low cost producer, because those expenses will be spread out across the firm’s hundreds of millions of subscribers. By 2031, Gould predicts Netflix will generate a $19 average revenue per user, 29% earnings before interest and tax margin, and over $25 earnings per share.
Gould expects Netflix to return earnings per share of $0.40 on revenue of $8.82 billion for the full 2016 fiscal year.
“It has minimal distribution costs and as Netflix self- produces more content it eliminates the studio’s margin thereby maximizing the economic profit in the content cycle between production and retail monetization,” Gould’s firm argued.
Netflix’s only major threat at this point is Amazon (AMZN), which offers its video service for free to its Prime members, according to Gould.
Shares of Netflix rose 2.3% Monday, as the FANG stocks begin to rebound after president-elect Donald Trump‘s win of the White House on Nov. 8.
