Netflix overtook Walt Disney in market value on Thursday, taking the title of most valuable media company from the film, TV and theme-park giant, but only for a little while.
Shares of the video streaming service rose as much as 2% to US$351.48 in New York, and the company’s market cap topped $152bn, exceeding the value of Disney, which was down 1.6%.
Disney’s stock fell 0.8% in trading on Thursday, to close at $102.11 per share, yielding a market cap of $152.2 billion, but by the end of the day shares had recovered enough to nudge its market cap back up ahead of Netflix.
On Wednesday, Netflix’s market cap surpassed that of Comcast, the cable and media giant that’s poised to start a bidding war with Disney to acquire 21st Century Fox assets. Netflix’s total market cap that day was $152.8 billion while Comcast’s was $147.5 billion.
In the 15 years since Netflix’s shares first went public, the company has skyrocketed both in market value and operational milestones to become a transformational force in entertainment. Earlier this year, Netflix surpassed 125 million worldwide subscribers, and the competitive threat of Netflix’s $10 billion content budget this year has traditional titans like Disney, Fox, Comcast and Time Warner all scrambling to buy (or be bought by) each other.
By Daniëlle Kruger
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