Three years after inking a distribution deal with French telecom giant Orange, Netflix has announced that it’s renewing the partnership — and adding dozens more markets to the the agreement.
Netflix launched in France back in September 2014, with some political leaders anxious about what its arrival would mean for the nation’s culture. Following a swift 100,000 Netflix sign-ups, Orange — France’s biggest telecom company — revealed that it would offer Netflix through its set-top boxes, clearly a huge boon for the video-streaming company as it sought to gain mindshare among the French masses.
Fast-forward to 2017, and the duo have gone one step further by expanding the partnership to cover a total of 29 markets across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA). The new markets include Belgium, Spain, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Botswana, Cameroon, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Liberia, Morocco, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Tunisia, among others.
“This partnership builds on our strong relationship with Orange in France, offering in the future, the possibility for millions of our customers in multiple countries to enjoy the world’s leading internet entertainment service seamlessly, in one place,” said Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, in a blog post.
Netflix went truly global back in January 2016 when it launched in 130 new markets, but one of the biggest obstacles to expansion is undoubtedly marketing its service in new regions and encouraging pickup by local viewers. With a major local telecom company on board for the push, Netflix’s job just got that little bit easier. For context, Orange claims 269 million customers across all its markets, including 207 million on mobile and 19 million on broadband.
Netflix and Orange in Spain announced a similar deal last year, and next up will be Poland, where Orange customers will be invited to join Netflix as part of a bundled TV offer “in the coming months.” This is timely, given that just yesterday Netflix revealed it was working on its first Polish-language original TV series. Additional Orange markets will follow across the EMEA region later in 2018.