Pivotal Research hikes Netflix price target to Street-high $1,100 after Tyson-Paul fight

Netflix's record-breaking boxing match between legend Mike Tyson and influencer Jake Paul cements the company's status as the winner in streaming, according to Pivotal Research Group. The firm raised its price target on Netflix to a Wall Street-high $1,100. That target, up from $925, implies upside of 26.2%. Pivotal said the change accounts for higher medium- and long-term subscriber and revenue estimates following the bout. The event shown on Netflix notched 65 million live concurrent streams and 108 million total live viewers worldwide, making it the most-streamed global sporting event on record. "Importantly, given the success of the Tyson/Paul fight we expect Netflix to accelerate its offerings of 'eventized' live programming, which further enhances NFLX's ability to offer households regular compelling content (juiced by the fact their competitors are now selling previously exclusive content to NFLX) likely lower subscriber churn and greater ability to take price," analyst Jeffrey Wlodarczak wrote in a Wednesday note. Netflix's large free cash flow and strong subscriber numbers stand in contrast to its competitors, which are struggling with substantial losses and "mediocre" subscriber results, according to the analyst. "While not necessarily needed by NFLX, we believe other streaming players/media players will have no choice but to continue to sell their premium library content to NFLX to offset their own poor returns in streaming (and to tap into NFLX's ~600M global viewers to increase the content value), which enhances the value of NFLX service allowing them to drive higher subscriber growth," Wlodarczak added. Netflix shares have rallied nearly 79% in 2024. NFLX YTD mountain Netflix shares in 2024 "Our view remains unchanged that Netflix has won the global streaming race as evidenced by YTD results/raised guidance (especially relative to its streaming peers' results), and this is what, in our opinion, winning looks like," the analyst said.