The popular video-streaming provider Netflix announced on Tuesday that its service is scheduled to become available in South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore come early 2016.
The move, which comes as part of Netflix’s global expansion strategy, is not the company’s first foray into Asia, as the company’s service became available for users in Japan earlier this month.
While surely there are other Asian countries beyond the recently announced four that would like to see Netflix’s video-streaming service made available in their region, there are technological prerequisites such as Internet data transfer speeds which must be met in order for the service to reach such areas.
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings noted in the company’s recently issued press release regarding their Asian expansion that the four markets — Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan — “well represent” trends which indicate that they are not only technologically advanced enough for, but adequately interested in a service such as that which Netflix provides.
The combination of increasing Internet speeds and ubiquity of connected devices provides consumers with the anytime, anywhere ability to enjoy their favorite TV shows and movies on the Netflix service (…) These four markets well represent those trends.
Yahoo Finance notes in a recent report that the streaming video giant’s aggressive global expansion has placed increased focus on emerging economies where the perceived potential for subscription service growth is high.
The launch into the four new Asian markets is set to include access to both movies as well as television series in both HD and Ultra HD 4K. With quality aside and devices in mind, the service is scheduled to be made available across all Internet connected devices such as gaming consoles, personal computers, smart TVs, tablets, set-top boxes and smartphones.
In other news, Netflix struck a deal with internet service provider Comcast to enable direct access to Comcast’s broadband network in a bid to increase streaming speeds for Netflix users.
