Netflix expands into 130 more countries in surprise move

Update: Other markets Netflix is expanding into include Russia, South Korea, Turkey, Nigeria, Poland, and Vietnam.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings dropped a warhead on the TV industry Wednesday morning at the company’s CES keynote speech: Netflix launched in more than 130 countries with, essentially, the flip of a switch.

According to LG, they’ve “initiated a global partnership with Netflix to facilitate the expansion of Netflix’s global on-demand Internet streaming operations beyond the Internet TV network’s already established markets (the Americas, Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan)”. But China, the world’s most populous country, remains a gap in the company’s global footprint. That isn’t stopping Netflix from adding Chinese as one of its new language options though, along with Korean and Arabic to make a new total of 21. Hastings said Netflix hopes to reach China in the future, as well, but offered no specific timeframe.

“We are in a unique position to bring the world’s stories to the world’s people”, Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos said at CES.

Netflix is also not available in North Korea, Syria, and Crimea “due to USA government restrictions on American companies”, the company said.

2013 marked the beginning of Netflix’s original production effort with House of Cards, but in 2016 that effort goes into overdrive with a host of new shows. The full list of supported countries is now live on the company’s website. With a variety of major competitors in streaming video, cable operators now face more threats to keeping their customers, but so does Netflix.

It’s likely that all Netflix content would have to be vetted before it could be made available in the country.