All that binge-watching at the swipe and a click of the mouse has proved successful for Netflix lately, as the company revealed yesterday in its letter to investors that it’s hit 29.3 million U.S. subscribers. Without even taking into account its trial customers, that’s a hop skip and jump over HBO’s last reported total of 28.7 million subscribers. Cord? What’s a cord? Something to be cut?

Engadget notes that this isn’t too much of a surprise, as last year at this time Netflix was at 25.1 million U.S. customers total, setting itself into prime position to outpace HBO.

Netflix can likely thank itself for pushing out original series like Orange is the New Black and House of Cards, shows which allow subscribers to watch an episode… and then another one, and another one on and on until that’s all you’re dreaming about at night and your alarm clock sounds like Kevin Spacey’s version of a Southern drawl.

The company says it expects to add another three million customers globally in the next quarter and is dangling stand-up comedy specials and original documentaries as the bait.

Also of note: Netflix isn’t crowing about beating competitors like Amazon Prime and Hulu — instead, CEO Reed Hastings writes in a letter to investors that there could be the possibility of some cable deals that would appear to embrace those not ready to cut the cord just yet.

He writes, “we think it will be many years before cable set-top boxes match Internet set-top boxes for Netflix streaming volume.”

Translation: If you can’t beat’em (yet), join’em.

Netflix tops 40 million customers total, more paid US subscribers than HBO [Engadget]

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