Just seven months after it launched a streaming movie service in Canada, which now has some 800,000 subscribers, Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) says it plans to launch a second international service in the second half of the year and a third international play in early 2012.
In a letter to shareholders recounting the company's first quarter earnings, CEO Reed Hastings said the company's international unit would begin to "incur some small expenses for our second international market" in the second quarter, with some $50 million to $70 million in losses from operations internationally in the second of 2011, a number Hastings said the company was "comfortable with given the size of the opportunity."
The third market?
"We've also decided to make some early content commitments for a third international market given our high probability of success in our second international market," Hastings said. It'll launch sometime in early 2012, he said.
For more:
- see this Netflix letter to subscribers
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