Netflix announced at the Consumer Electronics Show on Jan. 6 that the online media streaming company will expand its services this year to over 130 countries, with the exception of China, as well as North Korea and Syria due to U.S. trade conflicts, reported The Guardian on Jan. 6.
The streaming service will widely be available to the additional countries in English with subtitle support, and will also include Korean, Arabic and traditional and simplified Chinese to the list of supported languages along with 17 others.
"Right now, you are witnessing the birth of a global TV network," said chief executive of Netflix Reed Hastings during the announcement. "Whether you are in Sydney or St. Petersburg, Singapore or Seoul, Santiago or Saskatoon, you now can be part of the Internet TV revolution."
"We still have a lot of work to do," Hastings added during a separate telephone interview. "Because of the number of countries, it seems like we are ahead of plan. But we still have China - we still have a quarter of the world to go."
The expansion of Netflix to various countries not only boosts the profit and prominence of the company in the media streaming industry, but is also a form of strategy to tap a wider market to share its popular contents to.
"The rest of the world has about six times as many broadband subscribers as the U.S.," said Puneet Manchanda, a professor at the Ross School of Business in Michigan, in relation to the company's expansion to India. "So this is one way they can grow by expanding into new markets because the market size is quite big."
"They become a worldwide channel, and that's part of their strategy," Manchanda added.
Aside from the 130 countries that will be receiving Netflix's services soon, many existing subscribers are also excited about the expansion, especially once the company receives rights to global content from the new countries, noted Michigan Daily on Jan. 12.
"I've heard really good things about Bollywood films," said Netflix subscriber Chloe Herl. "I have only seen one or two, but they are really fun. I think one of the great things about Netflix is that you can find really obscure films as opposed to really mainstream American culture."
"They have such a thriving movie industry over there, but it doesn't always make it over to American film audiences, and I think that is something Americans are going to enjoy," Herl added.