Is Netflix Ripe For Apple Picking?
On Friday, Netflix (NFLX) announced a $300 million stock buyback and today the market pushed the digital media company to a 52 week high, on bullish ratings by major Wall Street analysts.
Buoyed by deals that enable Netflix to stream movies and television shows to game consoles and digital video recorders, as well as its highly visible iPad application, 
the company has been moving away from its original focus on the delivery of physical DVDs, leaving companies like Redbox and Blockbuster to sort out the real world of location and inventory.
At the market close, Netflix is enjoying a market cap of over $6.3 billion, while Blockbuster is struggling to restructure over $900 million in debt.
Netflix recently announced it will be coming to the iPhone at an appearance onstage with Steve Jobs during his keynote at Apple's Worldwide Developers' Conference. CEO Reed Hastings also touted the popularity of Netflix's iPad app, stating it was the most downloaded app in the entertainment category.
With a loyal subscriber base that is growing at a rate of 35% year over year, Netflix brings to Apple's mobile products a streaming media platform that doesn't depend on downloading large content files to view movies or television series, and plays high quality videos instantly over broadband connections. With iTunes, Apple has focused most of its efforts on downloadable content and owning personal copies of popular branded media.
With cash reserves of $40 billion, Apple could purchase Netflix without feeling a lot of financial pain and find itself nicely embedded on competitive gaming consoles like Nintendo's Wii or Microsoft's Xbox, which currently provide access to Netflix streaming services. 
In addition, Apple has struggled to make Apple TV a must-have home entertainment component, calling it a "hobby." But with a Netflix acquisition, it could find its three screen strategy - TV, PC, and mobile - by leveraging the streaming solution and removing the consumer headaches of moving digitally protected files to and from each piece of hardware, or starting a movie in your house and finishing it on the bus.
Follow Technorati