After it took years to get Netflix in Australia, it seemed to take just moments to expand the popular streaming platform to 130 new countries around the world, when the company simultaneously announced the expansion and sent it live during Co-founder and Chief Executive Reed Hastings’ keynote at CES 2016 in Las Vegas.
“Today you are witnessing the birth of a new global Internet TV network,” said Hastings during his keynote. “With this launch, consumers around the world — from Singapore to St. Petersburg, from San Francisco to Sao Paulo — will be able to enjoy TV shows and movies simultaneously — no more waiting. With the help of the Internet, we are putting power in consumers’ hands to watch whenever, wherever and on whatever device.”
While there will still be a different range of content available in each territory – something which has been a criticism of the local Australian version of Netflix – this means that, at the very least, Netflix’s original series and films will now be available, legally, in 190 countries around the world – alongside a mix of other content. And for whatever the monthly price is in your territory, you can continue that subscription as you travel the world, watching the service on buses and trains anywhere that the internet extends to… something which no other platform – bar perhaps services like YouTube – have been able to offer.
Looking ahead to the broad range of content to come in 2016, the company said in a statement they plan “to release 31 new and returning original series, two dozen original feature films and documentaries, a wide range of stand-up comedy specials and 30 original kids series – available at the same time to members everywhere.”
To accompany the expansion, Netflix has added Arabic, Korean, Simplified and Traditional Chinese to the 17 languages it already supports. Netflix will not yet be available in China, Crimea, North Korea or Syria “due to U.S. government restrictions on American companies”. However they continue to explore ways they can get into the lucrative Chinese market.
“From today onwards, we will listen and we will learn, gradually adding more languages, more content and more ways for people to engage with Netflix,” said Hastings. “We’re looking forward to bringing great stories from all over the world to people all over the world.”
For a full list of countries and territories where Netflix is now available, see here.
https://youtu.be/iXDJBVzQYl4
Netflix is available for free for your first month. More details here: www.netflix.com.au
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