Netflix eyes Asia for international expansion

Jun 1, 2011, 22:42 GMT

Los Angeles - Netflix, the online video rental service that has revolutionized the way Americans rent movies and TV shows, will make its first international move later this year, founder and chairman Reed Hastings said Wednesday.

Hastings did not reveal the location of Netflix's first location outside the US and Canada. But speaking at The Wall Street Journal's D9 conference in Southern California, he said prominent Asian countries were a huge target for his fast-growing company which now has 23 million monthly subscribers, compared to 14 million a year ago.

'China's very tough for US companies,' he said, 'but outside of China, I think Korea's a great market, Indonesia's going to be a great market, Japan's a great market, India's going to be a great market.'

'We're national and trying to be a global Internet company,' Hastings said. 'Across the globe, there's about 5 billion people with mobile phones and essentially all of those 5 billion like video.'

The Los Angeles Times quoted industry sources as saying that Netflix was also looking at Mexico, Brazil and the UK as expansion targets.

But Hastings noted that any expansion would happen gradually as it could take up to three years for the company to make a profit in any single country it started to offer service in.

Read more about Business

Read more about US Media