At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) keynote, Netflix CEO Reed Hasting announced that the streaming platform will be available in another major market – India, as well as other countries such as Vietnam, Turkey, Singapore, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Poland, Russia and many more.
The list includes 130 new countries in total, added to the 60 where the company already operates. that means Netflix now covers nearly every country on earth.
The firm has also now added Arabic, Korean and Chinese to its languages, even though they aren’t actually live in China yet.
The expansion comes after the announcement this week that the company will also partner with DreamWorks to make new original content available in additional markets. Netflix is also said to be collaborating with LG to launch 4K HDR content in markets like Asia, Europe and the Middle East during 2016.
At the end of 2015, Netflix was live in over 70 million households. Hastings says that users streamed more than 12 billion hours in Q4 2015, up from 8.25 billion the year before, with a total of 42.5 billion hours for the whole of 2015.
Netflix is also focused on being a content creator instead of simply a provider, though Hastings says he will continue to invest in the company’s core streaming technology.
“One day we hope to get so good at suggestions that we show exactly the show you want for your mood”, he said, in addition to updates to improve picture quality and audio expected to roll out during the year.
SOURCE: Netflix.
Larry Banks is a keen follower of technology and finance. He has worked for a variety of online publications, writing about a diverse range of topics including mobile networks, patents, and Internet video delivery technologies.
