Netflix at $250? BTIG says that – and some 37M subscribers – by 2014

Netflix has gotten a big boost from Richard Greenfield, an analyst at BTIG Research, who has stamped a BUY rating on the content aggregator and reset its price target to $250… a big journey from its current range, but still shy of the $300 heights it hit before its bubble burst.

Why now? Greenfield says the company is creating its own high-quality programming, which will cut down on churn and accelerate its subscriber growth. And, Greenfield said, Netflix now is seeing enough growth in streaming that its revenue growth—in the U.S., anyway—will outpace the dollars its spending on content.

Netflix is poised to announce first quarter earnings next week, and Greenfield thinks the company will come in with 29.4 million streaming subscribers, revenues in excess of $1 billion and an EPS of 23 cents, outpacing the consensus 18 cents. More impressive—and telling—is that he’s forecasting Netflix will top 33 million streaming subs by the end of 2013 and 37 million by the end of 2015.

Netflix, which once was a pariah in the pay-TV world, slowly has started to gain respect. But, what it really has is a customer base that uses the streaming service to a point that no other OTT or pay-TV multiscreen provider can match. Consider: 2012 research from Parks Associates showed that although TV Everywhere is available to roughly 95 percent of pay-TV customers in North America, just 25 percent of them in the United States are aware that they can access it (slightly more Canadians are aware it’s there, blame it on long winters).

Netflix has gained so much clout that ISPs and MSOs offering broadband are now marketing it and even offering it as part of bundles.

Liberty Media honcho John Malone even gave Netflix a nod as a potential partner in offering wholesale sporting events.

I moderated a panel at NAB last week, and mentioned that, for the first time in several years, there wasn’t a panel or presentation titled “OTT: Friend of Foe.” So, I guess that’s one question that’s finally been cleared up… now, just what kind of a friend are we talking about?

Jim O’Neill is Vice President, New Media at Radi8 Creative. He previously was editor of FierceIPTV and FierceOnlineVideo, and an analyst focusing on new media at Parks Associates.