Read update
- The previous version of this story incorrectly concluded that all of Netflix's catalog would be available worldwide. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Reed Hastings, Netflix's CEO, said the following during the CES keynote earlier today:
This is HUGE. It might be the best news to come out of CES this year. Scratch that. It is the best news to come out of CES this year. Not just because it affects the way millions of people could potentially enjoy and experience TV and movies, but because it proves that when a company has enough clout and will, it can make licensing arrangements globally instead of tiptoeing around each country's policies and agencies.
Netflix, the internet TV service, has expanded its availability from 87 countries and territories, to a total of 242. Yes, that's 157 new countries and islands and small territories that can stream all the TV and movies they want for a fixed monthly fee. Impressive. The only 4 locations where Netflix is not available right now are China (though the company says it's exploring options to provide its service there), and Syria, North Korea, and Crimea (because of restrictions on American companies).
Here's the full list of new countries added, including some of the most populated nations in the world like India, Indonesia, and Pakistan, and some very small countries who are usually shunned by other companies (like my beloved Lebanon).
- Afghanistan
- Albania
- Algeria
- Angola
- Armenia
- Australian Antarctica
- Azerbaijan
- Bahrain
- Bangladesh
- Belarus
- Benin (Dahomey)
- Bhutan
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Botswana
- British Indian Ocean Territory
- Brunei Darussalam
- Bulgaria
- Burkina Faso (Upper Volta)
- Burundi
- Cambodia (Kampuchea)
- Cameroon
- Cape Verde Islands (Cabo Verde)
- Central African Republic
- Chad
- Christmas Island
- Cocos (Keeling) Islands
- Comoros
- Cook Islands
- Croatia
- Cyprus
- Czech Republic
- Democratic Republic of Congo
- Djibouti Republic
- East Timor (Timor-Leste)
- Egypt
- Equatorial Guinea
- Eritrea
- Estonia
- Ethiopia
- Falkland Islands
- Fijian Islands
- French Polynesia
- Gabon
- Gambia
- Georgia
- Ghana
- Gibraltar
- Greece
- Guinea
- Guinea-Bissau
- Heard Island and McDonald Islands
- Hong Kong
- Hungary
- Iceland
- India
- Indonesia
- Iran
- Iraq
- Israel
- Ivory Coast (Cote d'Ivoire)
- Jordan
- Kazakhstan
- Kenya
- Kiribati
- Kuwait
- Kyrgyzstan
- Lao People's Democratic Republic
- Latvia
- Lebanon
- Lesotho
- Liberia
- Libya
- Liechtenstein
- Lithuania
- Macao
- Macedonia
- Madagascar
- Malawi
- Malaysia
- Maldives
- Mali
- Malta
- Mauritania
- Mauritius
- Mayotte
- Moldova
- Monaco
- Mongolia
- Montenegro
- Morocco
- Mozambique
- Myanmar (Burma)
- Namibia
- Nauru
- Nepal
- Netherlands Antilles
- New Caledonia
- Niger
- Nigeria
- Niue
- Norfolk Island
- Oman
- Pakistan
- Palestine
- Papua New Guinea
- Philippines
- Pitcairn Islands
- Poland
- Qatar
- Republic of the Congo
- Réunion
- Romania
- Russian Federation
- Rwanda
- Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha
- Saint Pierre and Miquelon
- Samoa
- Sao Tome and Principe
- Saudi Arabia
- Senegal
- Seychelles
- Sierra Leone
- Singapore
- Slovakia
- Slovenia
- Solomon Islands
- Somalia
- South Africa
- South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
- South Korea (Republic of Korea)
- South Sudan
- Sri Lanka (Ceylon)
- Sudan
- Swaziland
- Taiwan
- Tajikistan
- Tanzania
- Thailand
- Togo
- Tokelau Islands
- Tonga
- Tunisia
- Turkey
- Turkmenistan
- Tuvalu
- Uganda
- Ukraine
- United Arab Emirates
- United States Minor Outlying Islands (Baker Island, Midway Atoll, Wake Island)
- Uzbekistan
- Vanuatu (New Hebrides)
- Vietnam
- Wallis and Futuna
- Western Sahara
- Yemen
- Zambia
- Zimbabwe
If you live anywhere in these 157 countries, congrats! Netflix will now work for you, the app will be available to download on Android (and other platforms), and you'll get a free month to test everything before you have to pick one of the three different monthly plans. The service has also been localized in Arabic, Korean, and Simplified and Traditional Chinese, in addition to the 17 languages it already supported.
For the full list, which includes every country where Netflix is now available, see this. We counted 242 countries in that list in case you're wondering.
From the looks of it, it seems that much of the service's original catalog will be available worldwide, and the company plans to add even more original content (series, kids series, feature films, documentaries, and more) in 2016.
Now if we could get better, faster, and more ubiquitous internet to make this kind of service viable everywhere without too much buffering, it'd be perfect. Cough. Google, can we get like a worldwide satellite-based internet thingamajig? Cough. And while you're at it, can you get your ducks in a row and release Play Movies, TV, Music, and Books everywhere? I mean, if Netflix can do it, so can you. Cough.
UPDATE: 2016/01/06 2:35pm PST BY
The previous version of this story incorrectly concluded that all of Netflix's catalog would be available worldwide. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Reed Hastings, Netflix's CEO, said the following during the CES keynote earlier today:
"As we build our library and renew existing deals we're getting to the state where over the next five or 10 years everything will be consistent around Netflix and everything will be available globally," he said in a Q&A session following the keynote address.
"We're moving as quickly as we can ... [but] we're still somewhat a prisoner of the current distribution architecture.
"We want the citizens of the world to have the same content."
Mr Hastings said that as a private company Netflix could work quicker to break down legacy global distribution arrangements than governments could.
Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos said content distribution no longer needed to be fragmented.
"It's going to be a patchwork for a while but all that regional availability is going to narrow over time," he said.
"The technology is there; it's the business models that now stand in the way.
"The constraints of linear television are falling away one by one."
The fragmented nature of global film and television distribution rights was a factor in the company's decision to invest in original content such as House of Cards, Mr Sarandos said. While Netflix has sold local distribution rights to some of its original shows in the past to offset risk, most Netflix original productions would be available worldwide in the future, he said.
Source: Netflix