Time Warner Inc (TWX), Coinstar, Inc. (CSTR): Netflix, Inc. (NFLX): Next Stop $225?

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Hargreaves is naturally reiterating his earlier outperform rating, feeling that healthy overseas growth and natural margin expansion given the scalable model will breathe new life into Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX)’s financial future.

Who else can catch up at this point? Nobody has the established Web-tethered subscriber base to justify Netflix’s capital outlays for popular or original content. There’s also the service’s unmatched data mining.

HBO may have been at this game for decades, but what does it really know about its customers? Amazon has been selling DVDs and now video downloads for longer than Netflix, but it doesn’t have the data that falls into Netflix’s lap as more than a billion hours of streaming video are consumed.

Netflix is less likely to make a content mistake than HBO or Amazon or Coinstar because it knows what consumers are actually streaming.

Why didn’t Amazon buy Netflix when it had a chance this summer? When Netflix was unloved and trading for less than a third of the price that it is right now, why didn’t Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) buy Netflix?

Microsoft had the money, and Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) CEO Reed Hastings even sat on its board at the time. It would’ve improved the software giant’s prospects with the poorly received Surface tablet late last year, and served as a cornerstone for the next Xbox. Amazon — after years of being a rumored suitor — could’ve snapped up Netflix at its most vulnerable and affordable moment.

It’s too late now. Everybody’s chasing Netflix higher these days.

The article Netflix: Next Stop $225? originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by Rick Aristotle Munarriz.

Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz owns shares of Netflix. The Motley Fool recommends Amazon.com and Netflix. The Motley Fool owns shares of Amazon.com, Microsoft, and Netflix.

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