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Netflix’s announcement on Wednesday that it will be expanding its services to more than 130 new countries sets the stage for forecasts on the future of cord cutting around the world. It also creates more intrigue around Netflix’s currently falling stock prices, and wonder at how the video streaming giant will fare in the years to come.
Netflix is undeniably one of the biggest players in the U.S.’s tech scene, but encroaching onto the rest of the world is taking time. CEO Reed Hasting’s reveal at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas that the company will be operating in countries including India, Russia, and South Korea this year is the materialization of the expansion many had expected of Netflix. The company has been focusing on international expansion, and Hastings emphasized Netflix’s commitment to creating a worldwide TV network.
While Netflix has managed to transform the North American TV-watching experience, disrupting the video market as a whole, its reception in countries such as India will be one to watch. As Tech in Asia points out, cord-cutting is not mainstream in India. The lack of reliable internet makes streaming video services frustrating to operate, and cable TV remains the preferred method. But as India slowly but surely works on extending its web access and strengthening it, Netflix could be entering that market at just the right time. After all, it was only a few years ago that U.S. analysts said that Netflix and the idea of streaming TV was only a fad, and would never dethrone the cable giants. Lo and behold, cable companies have struggled significantly, especially as millennials (adults 18 to 24 in 2015) and younger folks have grown up with services like Netflix, Hulu, and others and made them their primary methods for watching TV.
Yet, this news comes on the heels of some speculation from Wall Street that Netflix might not be doing as well as everyone suspects. William Power and Steven Beckert at Baird reportedly downgraded Netflix to “Neutral” from “Buy” in a note Monday, saying the company’s subscriber count may have plateaued, according to Business Insider.
Other analysts have questioned how long Netflix’s current success can continue, and indeed whether or not the end is in sight. As with investor speculation, it is subject to change, but for now Netflix will be addressing the user base question by — it hopes — on-boarding millions of new users around the world.
