) reported its fiscal second quarter earnings on Thursday after market close — but the streamer will once again have a high bar to overcome as"For NFLX shares, much is priced in but we remain bullish given the still large opportunity for growth ahead," Morgan Stanley analyst Benjamin Swinburne wrote in a note ahead of the report.
Netflix also has "larger competitors to consider especially as its own business matures over the next few years," warned Swinburne. "The obvious examples are Alphabet's YouTube and Amazon's Prime Video. Perhaps less obvious are other sources of consumer time like social media, which is increasingly populated by short-form video."
She cited the glut of new inventory with the launch of several competitor ad-supported services, along with "the backdrop of a mixed advertising environment." Still, the analyst reiterated her Buy rating and increased her price target to $740 a share, up from the prior $700.