Could Netflix have the UK and Spain in its sights for further domination of the film rentals market?
It appears that “leading European film distributors” have alluded to talks with Netflix who appear to be seeking to “put roots down” in both the UK and Spanish markets.
Netflix to arrive in Q1 of 2012 in the UK and Spain?
The UK market looks certain to be a tougher nation to crack as Lovefilm has got first mover advantage with a steady subscription base of over 1.7 million in the UK and the rest of Europe, and the full weight of Amazon behind them who can obviously offer their cloud based services to capitalise on all things mobile and wireless related (streaming services essentially).
A recent recruitment drive at LoveFilm also proves that they are no shrinking violet and have a steady growth strategy behind them.
“The company has expanded from less than ten staff in west London in 2006 to 380 staff in the UK as well as 106 in Germany, Sweden, Norway and Denmark.”
How will Netflix and LoveFilm compete?
With NetFlix favouring the streaming subscription model and LoveFilm moving ever closer to this type of service but still including traditional “post your film” rentals, will the DVD rental market slowly die once we are all more or less connected to the Internet with our viewing devices (TV/PC, tablets etc)?
And will the arrival of Netflix benefit consumers in the UK, Spain and Europe once some healthy competition is in place?
We look forward to finding out!
Anthony Munns