Top domestic satellite operator DirecTV (News - Alert) sailed by analyst estimates for its first-quarter earnings, on the back of phenomenal growth in Latin America and despite an uptick in content costs. Revenue jumped 8 percent to $7.58 billion.

It wasn’t all rosy news: DirecTV’s share count has constricted, so profit was $690 million, or $1.20 per share, compared to $731 million, or $1.07 per share one year ago. Overall, net income was down 5.6 percent thanks to a devaluation of the Venezuelan currency in February that resulted in a $166 million charge.

Still, analysts expected earnings of $1.07 per share on revenue of $7.5 billion, which the satellite company handily leaped over.

A large reason for that is ongoing growth in Latin America, where it operates in Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Venezuela, Chile and Ecuador. Struggling with a saturated U.S. television market, the pay-TV operator shifted its focus to Latin America as a growth market a year ago in a strategy that continues to pay off thanks to an expanding middle class and poor coverage by wireline incumbent competitors in many countries. For Q1, DirecTV added 583,000 subscribers in the region, compared with just 21,000 net subscribers at home.

Even so, adding subscribers is more than its cable MSO competitors can say—Comcast (News - Alert) et. al. continue to lose basic video subs quarter after quarter. Its subscriber count now stands at 20.11 million, so it hangs onto its position as the number 2 pay-TV operator in the U.S.

It is focused on its ARPU as well: Of late DirecTV has been catering to what it called “higher-quality subscribers” domestically, who take top-tier packages. To do that, it has implemented stricter credit policies. The company also increased rates an average of 4.5% back in February.

Meanwhile, the company said that programming costs are up almost 6 percent—a state of affairs that’s will worsen with new deals with Viacom (News - Alert), CBS and Time Warner Cable Sports set to kick in later in the year. But CEO Mike White said that it will invest in TV Everywhere, which will open up new revenue streams to monetize that content investment.

“A lot of the capital investments are plumbing and wiring and infrastructure to enable us to stream even more,” White said.

The company is also prepping a new version of the Genie DVR with built-in Wi-Fi and mobile apps to control it.

DirecTV shares closed 6.9 percent higher at $61.95 on the Nasdaq on Tuesday. Since a recent low in late February, the stock is up about 30 percent.