For a long time, customers in the United States, and later Canada, have been able to cheaply rent movies and TV shows from Netflix, and more recently stream them to many devices, ranging from set-top boxes to mobile handsets. More than one decade later, movie aficionados in Latin America will also be able to stream Netflix content starting later this month.
The Los Gatos, California company made the announcement today on its official blog. Starting today, Netflix’s streaming service is available in Brazil for 14.99 Brazilian Real per month, which is equivalent to roughly $9.35, in addition to a one-month free trial. If you happen to live in the country, you will now have access to the wide content portfolio Netflix is known for by signing up for the service on Netflix.com.
We’re not done, however. According to Rochelle King, VP of User Experience and Design at Netflix, the service will also expand to a total of 43 countries and territories in Latin America and the Caribbean, such as Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Venezuela and Peru, starting next week. Prices for each country will vary slightly, but they should all be close to North America’s $9.99-per-month-mark.
In addition to the whole portfolio of movies and TV shows Netflix is known for, the company has also obtained content deals with local producers in order to bring Latin American content to its Latin American service:
We’ve licensed thousands and thousands of hours of feature films, classic favorites, gripping telenovelas, documentaries and kids shows we know you’ll enjoy.
Latin America has been known as a major player in streaming services for the last few years, causing prominent content distribution companies such as Blockbuster to leave those countries entirely. Yet, Netflix has the advantage of bringing incredibly cheap content to a wide range of supported devices, such as computers, game consoles, smartphones, and set-top boxes, which will likely be more compelling to users who would otherwise just obtain the same content from illegal sources.
In the United States, Netflix owns several shipping centers allowing users to rent physical copies of movies, although this plan has become significantly less popular over the last few years. This makes it rather obvious why Netflix is only making its streaming side available in other countries. Netflix is also expanding to the European market starting in Spain next year, likely with other markets to follow.
This is not the first time we’ve seen a well-known American content streaming service reach out to other parts of the world. Over the weekend, Hulu announced it would bring its Hulu Plus subscription service to Japan along with its wide portfolio of content.
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