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Netflix
Netflix announced plans to enter four new markets in Asia on Wednesday as the Internet video streaming service continues its global expansion.
Netflix will officially become available in Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan early next year, the company said.
“The combination of increasing Internet speeds and ubiquity of connected devices provides consumers with the anytime, anywhere ability to enjoy their favourite TV shows and movies on the Netflix service,” Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said in a statement. “These four markets well represent those trends.”
The announcement comes a week after the Los Gatos, California-based company launched its service in Japan. Netflix also launched in Australia and New Zealand in March and is expected to have done the same in Portugal, Spain and Italy by the year’s end.
Netflix’s international expansion efforts helped the company add 3.28 million new subscribers in its second quarter, easily beating its own projection for 2.5 million new subscribers. Most of those new customers were in Netflix’s international markets.
At present, the company is keeping mum on pricing, programming and availability for the four Asian countries, with details said to be coming at a later date.
Earlier this week the Korea Times reported that the service launching in South Korea was imminent. It added in the same report that Netflix was likely to partner with local mobile carriers and TV carriers to expand its reach.
That would be congruent with its strategy in Japan, where the company teamed with service provider Softbank, who now pre-installs the Netflix app on smartphones in the region.
The publication was told that Netflix would need “substantial” help from Korean carriers due to the high cost of content delivery on the country’s robust internet combined with the relatively low cost of the service itself. They may find the same problem in Hong Kong, whose Internet speeds are second only to South Korea.
