Netflix now has more paying subscribers in the United States than HBO.
Netflix revealed in its third quarter earnings report that it had 29.9 million paid subscribers as of the end of September, up from 28.6 million at the end of June. By comparison, Bloomberg reports that HBO has 28.7 million, according to SNL Kagan, a researcher.
[seealso slug="netflix-alternatives"]
In total, Netflix reported having 40 million members, up from less than 30 million a year earlier. Roughly 37 million of those members are paid subscribers.
Netflix's subscriber growth of 1.3 million domestically and 1.4 million abroad were significantly better than Wall Street estimates of 1.1 million and 950,000 new subscribers, respectively. Likewise, Netflix report earnings per share of $0.52 on revenue of $1.11 billion, which beat Wall Street's estimates for earnings per share of $0.49 on revenue of $1.1 billion.
The company's stock shot up by more than 10% in after hours trading following the report, closing in on $400 a share.
[img src="http://media.ycharts.com/charts/6b1bc7e1b3bf0a9cd1445657799a44cd.png" caption="" credit="" alt="NFLX Chart"]NFLX data by YCharts