Not taking Labor Day off, Netflix announced today that they are launching their Instant Streaming service today in Brazil and throughout Latin America over the next week. This expansion includes 43 different countries and territories to be added to Netflix customer base by September 12th. Netflix first announced their plans to expand to Latin America in early July.
By September 12, people throughout the Americas will be able to instantly watch a broad selection of movies and TV shows streaming from Netflix on computers, game consoles like the WII and PS3, and Smart TVs. A Netflix membership provides unlimited movies and TV shows for a low monthly subscription. Brazilians can now sign up for one month free at www.netflix.com.
This launch follows the much discussed price hike for existing customers going into effect September 1st and more recently Starz-Netflix negotiations broke down with Starz walking away from the table. That failed negotiation means that come February, Netflix won’t be licensed to stream Starz content which includes Sony and Disney movies. In their last quarterly earnings report, Netflix said they would be suffering a slow down in growth during the 3rd quarter due to the price hike but this big of an expansion should help counter that. As long as they get the launch right and the price point correct, this expansion offers them many more customers. However, how long will it take to pay them back for the infrastructure and licensing that they’ve invested in?
Getting to this day has been incredibly rewarding for everyone at Netflix – the passion and energy that have gone into building our Latin American service is amazing. Over the last few months, our team has spent countless hours in the region learning as much as we can about how Latin Americans think about, and enjoy, movies and TV shows. We’ve licensed thousands and thousands of hours of feature films, classic favorites, gripping telenovelas, documentaries and kids shows we know you’ll enjoy. We’ve been testing and figuring out the right internet architecture to make sure the quality and speed of the Netflix streaming experience is the best it can be. And we’ve been training people locally to deliver the excellent customer support Netflix is known for in the U.S. and Canada.