After some initial confusion, Netflix stock surged after hours, a repeat of what it did last quarter, soaring above its all time high price, up over 2% after reporting Q3 numbers which while beating slightly on revenues ($2.99Bn, Exp. $2.97Bn), and beating modestly on non-GAAP EPS (GAAP EPS$0.29, non-GAAP EPS $0.37, exp. $0.32), were far more remarkable for the subscriber numbers, which smashed expectations as follows:

The addition of 5.2 million subs in Q2 was the largest increase ever during the period, which traditionally is among the company’s slowest time of year.

Netflix’ Q4 outlook was in line with expecations and the company now expects Q4 net streaming adds of 6.3 million (1.25m in the US and 5.05m internationally) just fractionally higher than the consensus estimate of 6.29 million and below the 7.05 million in the year ago quarter (which was the company’s all time record high quarter).

The company expects $3.27 billion in Q4 revenue, also above the consensus estimate of $3.15 billion, generating net income of $183 million.

One thing that investors will focus on is the company’s content spend for next year, which Netflix is increasing once again: having previously said they would spend $7 billion, they are raising that by as much as a $1 billion, forecasting that “we’ll spend $7-8 billion on content (on a P&L basis) in 2018.”

Also, it will come as no surprise that with Wall Street expecting the company to spend $8.7 …

… it will continue spending an ungodly amount. Netflix now has 109.2 million subscribers worldwide, but the success has come at a steep price and as of Sept.30, NFLX’s total content obligations were a record $17 billion.

The company’s historical content spending is as follows:

Also, as one would expect, the company remains in its near-record cash burning ways, reporting that in Q3 it burned $464 million, modestly below the $608 million it burned last quarter, and $506 million one year earlier.