Netflix added 7 million subscribers in Q3 2018, bringing its total to 137 million globally, helping the company towards a significant rise in net income for the period.

The total figure of 137 million, an increase from 109 million reported in the same period in 2017, includes 130 million paid users, while the rest are those on a free trial. The company said it intends to stop reporting the latter figure as part of its results by 2020.

The 7 million net additions also beat its own forecast for the period by 2 million.

The growth was indeed good news for the company, which added 5.2 million subscribers in the last quarter, but that figure was notably well behind its forecast of 6.2 million.

“Total net additions of 7 million (up 31 per cent vs 5.3 million last year) was higher than our forecast of 5 million and represented a new Q3 records… with strong growth broadly across all our markets including Asia,” the streaming service said in statement.

“Our broad slate of original programming helped drive a solid quarter of growth with streaming revenue increasing 36 per cent year-over-year and global membership surpassing 130 million paid and 137 million total,” the statement added.

Netflix’s net income rose to $402.8 million, up from $129.6 million, a year earlier.

Mobile partnerships
The company added it rolled out its first mobile bundle in Japan with KDDI and expanded its partnership with Verizon to pre-install the Netflix app on Android phones in the quarter.

Netflix also said it plans to invest more than $8 billion in entertainment programming this year to lure new users, amid increased competition in the online streaming market from other players, including operators such as AT&T.

For Q4, the company forecast paid net additions of 7.6 million, and total net additions of 9.4 million, up 13 per cent compared to 8.3 million in Q4 last year.