Netflix lands in Latin America and Caribbean

US online video rental giant Netflix has announced the launch of its television and movie streaming service across Latin America and the Caribbean. The announcement was made via a post on the service’s official blog. Rochelle King, Netflix VP of User Experience and Design said that it would be launching through some 43 countries and territories in all.

The move is expected to provide a massive boost to the company, which already has more than 23-million subscribers in the US and Canada.

Like US users, viewers in Latin America and the Caribbean will be able to watch Netflix’s selection of movies and TV shows on their computers, game consoles like the Wii and PS3 and Smart TVs.

Netflix says that it “has licensed thousands and thousands of hours of feature films, classic favourites, gripping telenovelas, documentaries and kids shows”. It adds that its team has spent “countless hours in the region learning as much as we can about how Latin Americans think about, and enjoy, movies and TV shows”.

The company says that it has also been training local people to deliver the same kind of customer support that it offers in the US and Canada.

The move comes amidst a global expansion by a number of on-demand video streaming services.

Netflix competitor Hulu recently expanded to Japan, marking the first offering of the company’s services outside of the United States.

Google owned YouTube, which launched its own video-rental service earlier this year, recently expanded to Canada. Web retailing giant Amazon, meanwhile launched its movie streaming service in February.

When Netflix first announced that it planned to expand to Latin America and the Carribean in June, it stated that members in Latin America would be able to access the service in Spanish, Portuguese or English according to their preference. The announcement sent Netflix’s shares up to record highs, with share prices peaking at US$291.23.

The Netflix post makes no mention, however, of what pricing structure will be employed in the region. In the United States and Canada, the company charges US$7.99 a month for unlimited streaming of movies and television shows.

The post states that Brazilian users will receive one month’s free subscription to the service.