Netflix tops 2m in Europe
October 26, 2015
By Chris Forrester
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings says that Netflix’s customer base in France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg and Switzerland has reached 2 million viewers. Hastings was speaking in an interview with France’s Le Figaro newspaper.
The interview prompted a note to investors from equity analysts at Exane-BNP/Paribas, which says that the article does not provide a breakdown by country but, in September, one year after its launch in France, research consultancy NPA Conseil was estimating that Netflix would have c.700k subs in France and FutureSource Consulting estimated c.750k, while Vivendi mentioned in a recent road-show that Netflix had c. 400k.
Canal+ has its own Netflix-equivalent (CanalPlay) and this has some 730,000 users.
The bank’s note says: “Netflix not yet a major player in French Pay TV, but certainly gaining traction (to have a similar number of subs after one year than the incumbent pay TV after 3yr is quite a feat in our view) and the access to a global proprietary catalogue will rapidly help Netflix to improve its content offering. We expect Netflix’ impact on French Pay TV to gradually increase, adding woes to Canal’s economic model.”
“Traction,” says the bank’s note, “is probably not as good in Germany where competition is higher (Pro7’s Maxdome +independents)”.
Separately, it is reported that Netflix is hiring staff in the Gulf to support its planned entry in the Middle East.