Streaming services giant Netflix took a big step Wednesday to expand its global footprint, sending the company’s share price soaring.
Against the backdrop of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Netflix Chief Executive Reed Hastings announced the Los Gatos, Calif., company had added 130 more countries to its service.
That marks a substantial increase in the size of Netflix’s global network, which previously spanned 60 countries in North America, Latin America, Europe, and in the Pacific. Now, Netflix has services in more than 190 countries, including Russia, India, South Korea and Saudi Arabia.
“When we started Netflix nearly 20 years ago, we dreamed of the day when the Internet would enable us to deliver TV shows and movies to the billions of people with whom we share the planet,” Hastings told the crowd during his keynote address. “Today, right now, you are witnessing the birth of a global TV network.”
Netflix also said that it was including Arabic, Korean and Chinese to the 17 other languages already available.
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Zac Barnett of American Authors is seen on set for a video shoot on Oct. 26, 2014, in Dickson, Tenn. (Rick Diamond / Getty Images)
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Extras acting in the HBO series “Game of Thrones” leave the bullring on Oct. 22, 2014, as film crews began shooting part of the fifth season in the southern Spanish city of Osuna. (CRISTINA QUICLER / AFP/Getty Images)
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Indira Varma is on the set of “Game of Thrones” at Real Alcazar on Oct. 19, 2014, in Seville, Spain. (Europa Press / Europa Press via Getty Images)
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Actors film “Game of Thrones” at Real Alcazar on Oct. 19, 2014, in Seville, Spain. (Europa Press / Europa Press via Getty Images)
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Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is on the set of “Game of Thrones” at Real Alcazar on Oct. 19 in Seville, Spain. (Europa Press / Europa Press via Getty Images)
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Sylvester Stallone poses with his puppet as he takes part in the TV show “Le Grand Journal” at the Cannes Film Festival. (LOIC VENANCE / AFP/Getty Images)
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Jamie Foxx filming “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” on April 21, 2013, in New York City. (Aby Baker/Getty Images)
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Actor Andrew Garfield, center left, is seen on the set of “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” in New York City with his stunt double William Spencer, right, and a second stunt double. (Raymond Hall/ WireImage/Getty Images)
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Actor Andrew Garfield, right, rehearses a scene with his stunt double William Spencer on the “The Amazing Spiderman 2” movie set in Madison Square Park in New York.
(Ray Tamarra/Getty Images)
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Actor Andrew Garfield, right, his stunt double William Spencer, center, and a second stunt double are seen on the set of “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” in New York City. (Raymond Hall/ WireImage/Getty Images)
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Jamie Foxx filming on location for “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” on April 21, 2013, in New York City. (Bobby Bank/WireImage/Getty Images)
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Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone filming “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” on location in New York City. (Aby Baker/Getty Images)
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Jamie Foxx as Electro/Max Dillon in “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” on location in New York City. (Bobby Bank/WireImage/Getty Images)
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Actor Andrew Garfield, right, his stunt double William Spencer, center, and a second stunt double are seen on the set of “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” in New York City. (Raymond Hall/WireImage/Getty Images)
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Actor Paul Giamatti films a scene at the “The Amazing Spiderman 2” movie set in Madison Square Park on June 22, 2013, in New York City. (Ray Tamarra/Getty Images)
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Actor Andrew Garfield is seen on the set of “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” in New York City. (Raymond Hall/WireImage/Getty Images)
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Actor Paul Giamatti is seen on the set of “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” in New York City. (Raymond Hall/WireImage/Getty Images)
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Actor Paul Giamatti on the set of “The Amazing Spiderman 2” in New York City’s Madison Square Park. (Ray Tamarra/Getty Images)
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Jamie Foxx on location for “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” in New York City. (Bobby Bank/ WireImage/Getty Images)
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Julianne Moore and Kristen Stewart play mother and daughter filming on location for “Still Alice” on March 21, 2014, at Lido Beach, N.Y. (Steve Sands/Getty Images)
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Richard Gere on the set of “Time Out Of Mind” on March 26, 2014, in New York City. (Bobby Bank/WireImages/Getty Images)
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Jeremy Renner films an action scene in Aoasta, Italy, for “Avengers: Age of Ultron.”. (Photopix/Getty Images)
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Elizabeth Olsen and Aaron Taylor-Johnson film on location in Pont-Saint-Martin in Aosta, Italy, for “Avengers: Age of Ultron.” (Photopix/Getty Images)
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Actors are suited up for special effects on the set of “Avengers: Age of Ultron” in Aosta, Italy. (Photopix/Getty Images)
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Richard Gere and Ben Vereen on the set of “Time Out Of Mind” on March 26, 2014, in New York City. (Bobby Bank/WireImage/Getty Images)
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Arnold Schwarzenegger performs on the set of “Despierta America” with Joe Manganiello at Univision Headquarters in Miami. (Gustavo Caballero/Getty Images)
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Donal Logue, left, and Ben McKenzie on the set of “Gotham” on March 20, 2014, in New York City. (Bobby Bank/WireImage/Getty Images)
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Kevin McHale, left, Chord Overstreet, Chris Colfer and Darren Chris on the set of “Glee” at Washington Square Park on March 14, 2014, in New York City. (Bobby Bank/WireImage/Getty Images)
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Lea Michele and Michael Lerner on the set of “Glee” on March 16, 2014, in New York City. (Bobby Bank/WireImage/Getty Images)
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Louie CK on the set of “Louie” on Jan. 31, 2014, in New York City. (Bobby Bank/WireImage/Getty Images)
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Wil Estes and Vanessa Ray on the set of “Blue Bloods” on Jan. 31, 2014, in New York City. (Bobby Bank/WireImage/Getty Images)
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Skyler Gisondo and Ben Stiller on the set of “Night at the Museum 3” on Feb. 6, 2014, in New York City. (Bobby Bank/WireImage/Getty Images)
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George Clooney, second from left, filming “Tomorrowland” at Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias on Jan. 21, 2014, in Valencia, Spain. (Europa Press/Europa Press via Getty Images)
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Kevin Bacon and Sprague Grayden on the set of “The Following” on Dec. 10, 2013, in New York City. (Bobby Bank/WireImage/Getty Images)
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Mark Wahlberg is seen on set filming the movie ‘Transfomers 4: Age of Extinction’ on Sunday October 27,2013 in Hong Kong,China. (TPG/Getty Images)
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Mark Wahlberg performs on the set of “Transformers: Age of Extinction” in Hong Kong on Oct. 26, 2013. (Aaron Tam/ AFP/Getty Images)
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Scarlett Johansson filming a scene for her new movie, “Lucy” on Oct. 21, 2013, in Taipei, China. (TPG/Getty Images)
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Director Clint Eastwood, right, and actor John Lloyd Young as Frankie Valli on the set of “Jersey Boys” in Kearny, N.J. (Bobby Bank/WireImage/Getty Images)
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Edie Falco, left, and Julie White on the set of “Nurse Jackie” in New York City. (Bobby Bank/WireImage/Getty Images)
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As in the U.S., consumers in the newly added countries who pay a monthly fee will be able to watch Netflix original series as well a library of movies and TV shows.
Netflix said it will release 31 new and returning series in 2016, in addition to 24 films and documentaries, and 30 original children’s series and a range of stand-up comedy specials. This week Netflix announced an expansion of its partnership with Glendale studio DreamWorks Animation.
“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,” Hastings said.
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Although investors were expecting Netflix to expand its network, the size of the expansion came as a pleasant surprise to many on Wall Street who had fretted over a slowdown in Netflix’s domestic business.
Netflix Inc. shares climbed $10.02, or 9.3%, to $117.68 on Wednesday.
“The shift of power in media consumption has gone from corporations and their advertisers to the user through Netflix and the Internet,” wrote Brian Fitzgerald, a media analyst with Jeffries.
When we started Netflix nearly 20 years ago, we dreamed of the day when the Internet would enable us to deliver TV shows and movies to the billions of people.
— Reed Hastings, Netflix Chief Executive
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For Netflix, the expansion is driven by a desire to tap into a vast market for Internet television and a growing appetite among consumers to watch TV shows whenever they want, without commercials. Hastings noted that there were 3.2 billion people online in 2015, up from 400 million in 2000.
In an interview with The Times on Wednesday, Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos said Netflix was entering a new phase.
“The whole idea of near-global penetration of this service and delivering the news cloaked in secrecy at CES, it’s pretty astonishing,” Sarandos said. “The real work starts now of creating a really great global service with Netflix ... becoming more localized with additional languages, having additional payment options and increasing the local content in some of the territories. All that work is what’s ahead of us starting today.”
After finding success in the U.S. with its DVD-by-mail business and now its streaming service, Netflix has increasingly turned overseas for growth opportunities. Last year, Netflix rolled out its services in Japan, Australia and Spain, among others. One country that remains out of reach is China, where Netflix faces competition from local streaming services and potential censorship issues. But Sarandos expressed optimism that Netflix would eventually crack the world’s second-largest film market.
“China, we’ll figure out,” Sarandos said. “It’s a very dynamic situation for foreign media companies and foreign media ownership in China. We’ve been at it, and we’ll continue to work at it. The one thing I think will excite China about Netflix is it gives them the opportunity to have their stories told around the world.”
Netflix also won’t be available in Crimea, North Korea and Syria because of “U.S. government restrictions on American companies.”
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Netflix subscribers watched 12 billion hours of content globally over the last three months of 2015, an increase of 45% over the same period in 2014, Hastings said.
Netflix closed out its third quarter last year with 69.2 million streaming subscribers in more than 40 countries, including 26 million outside the U.S.
But the company has drawn more scrutiny from investors in recent months because of slower-than-expected subscriber growth in the U.S. The slowdown is expected to be reflected in the company’s fourth-quarter results, which will be released this month.
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Netflix shares dropped Monday after a downgrade from Robert W. Baird, which lowered its price target to $115.
“At some point, you get big, and the growth slows, but you still continue to grow,” Sarandos said of Wall Street reaction this week. “That’s just an organic thing that will happen to any service in any business. We look at the U.S. business as healthy and growing. Will it grow as fast as it did in the early days? The second 50 million is a lot tougher than the first 50 million.”
