At his company's CES keynote address in Las Vegas this morning, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings previewed a few upcoming programs, reflected on the history and future of TV, and trotted out a handful of celebrities. It was standard fare, and also something of a head-fake; over the course the hour-and-a-half event, Netflix switched on its streaming service in 130 brand new countries.
The aggressive expansion includes major markets like India, South Korea, Turkey, and Poland, but naming just a handful belies the full scope. According to Hastings (and a simple check of the globe), Netflix is now available in nearly every country on Earth. Except, he noted wryly, China.
"China is obviously a very large country. There are a billion Chinese that we want to give access to Netflix content," Hastings said during a lengthy question and answer session following the event. "In China you need specific permission from the government. We're continuing to work on that, and we're very patient."
While navigating the rights, interests, and restrictions of so many different nations and cultures must be daunting, Netflix's increased investment in home-grown content must make the expansion somewhat easier. There's no one easier to wrangle licenses and contracts with than yourself.
The company will still have to deal with local content standards; what's okay in Des Moines might not be in Djibouti. That's not a new problem, though, for Netflix or for the entertainment industry at large. Hastings said that "airplane cuts" (edited down to remove mature content) of its productions were something Netflix was looking at, and that "entertainment companies have to make compromises over time."
Netflix stock is up sharply on the news, as is, presumably, the amount of bandwidth being used up in over a hundred countries around the world. The company's even ticking off its new friends on its Twitter account, which might take a while 140 characters at a time.
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If anything, today's announcement is a reminder of just how much room Netflix still has to grow. Even before China comes around, it has to win over customers in dozens of brand new territories.
"Today's launch is like having a baby," said Hastings. "It's a big deal, but the real work is the next 20 years."
