Netflix announced on Tuesday night that the video streaming giant plans to add six more European countries to its international roster later this year. The news follows previous expansions into Europe, as the service is already available in Scandinavia and the U.K.
The company said that movie and television viewers in France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg and Switzerland at some point before the end of the year.
The service would bring Netflix shows like House of Cards and Orange is the New Black to two of the biggest media markets in the world - France and Germany. Getting a foothold in Germany may prove more difficult though, as The BBC notes. Customers there already have several streaming services to use, including Sky Deutschland's Snap and Vivendi's Watchever. Amazon Instant Video is also available there.
Ian Maude of media consulting agency Enders Analysis told the BBC that Germany also has low pay-TV rates and few customers interested in paying the costs.
“One thing I'm curious to see in Germany is whether or not it has dubbed a lot of the show for the market because - while French TV has a lot of subtitling - in Germany foreign language movies and TV shows are generally voiced over, and that can be quite an expensive process,” Maude said.
Netflix already has 48 million subscribers in 20 countries around the world. It opened shop in the Scandinavian countries in 2012 and hit the Netherlands last year. It is also available in the U.K., Northern Ireland and Latin America.