Netflix Expands to Canada
Netflix has announced that their operations will expand to Canada with Watch Instantly capabilities providing streaming movies and TV shows to a country outside the United States for the first time.
This also marks their first attempt to offer streaming-only services to their customer base. International expansion has been talked about before but earlier plans were put on the back burner to allow the company to focus on their core market in the U.S.
Netflix has determined that more and more of their core business is choosing digital streaming instead of disc rental. This made expansion to other markets easier to manage logistically. The company is still faced with the challenge of obtaining licensing agreements for content and programming. With a focus on streaming-only service they will have to spend less time dealing with the complications of running mail distribution centers.
Making this decision also allows Netflix to avoid competing directly with Zip.ca which is the Canadian version of a combination between Redbox and Netflix. At the time of launch, Netflix Canada will be available only in English but there are plans to add French sometime in the future.
The service will be available for PCs as well as Macs and is slated to be compatible with the numerous electronic devices that are currently compatible with Netflix.