Gaining brand loyalty domestically is a lofty goal for any company. For Netflix, engaging countries outside the U.S. is a key strategic goal.
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings talked about that theme during the company’s first-quarter earnings call on April 18.
“We’re very focused on global competition,” Hastings said, according to Seeking Alpha. “Obviously, around the world, it’s very fast growing for us. We’re coming toward 50/50 International, Domestic revenue. And so, we’re focused on content that we can have around the world, which is why we’re investing in original movies, original series so that we can have that content and also producing around the world like our French series Marseille or Spanish in Narcos. And that’s very different from carrying other people’s single nation networks. So that’s just a very different business. It’s not one we focus on a lot. We know what we want to be, which is a great global producer and distributor of content, and other people will do other things and that’s fine.”
Hastings added that company officials are ecstatic to have eclipsed 81 million subscribers.
“Some of it was from our expansion around the world,” he explained. “It’s 130 countries. So there’s quite a bit of variety. And remember that most of those countries we haven’t yet seen the full potential of, because we’re only in English and only with international credit cards. So over the next couple of years, as we further localize, we'll be able to see more opportunity. But by going so broad, we’ve increased our rate of learning, and so, we’re really excited about the approach and looking forward to the rest of the year.”
Regarding competitors, Hastings noted Hulu, Amazon, HBO, and Showtime.
“There are so many competitors, and everyone is working hard to build the best content,” he said. “And so we’re seeing growth in the overall Internet TV market. Of course, that’s displacing linear TV, and it’s natural that everybody is coming in as they realize that the future is Internet TV. And in terms of our shows, we’re very excited about what we’re doing. Not only are we expanding the number of original series we’re doing, but we’re also expanding into original movies.”