IHS: High Hopes for European Netflix Expansion

IHS predicts international customers will make 20% of overall Netflix subscribers as the video streaming service is set to be available in Belgium France, Luxembourg, Austria, Switzerland and Germany by end 2014.

Netflix According to the analyst the move will see the addition of 5-6 million new subscribers.

"Between the expansion of Netflix and its growing popularity in markets such as the UK, Ireland, Netherlands and Scandinavia, we anticipate that the company will add a total of 8m new subscribers to its European tally by the end of 2018,” IHS says.

Further on the analyst says the Netflix rollout should propel the W. European online subscription market to a 35% CAGR over the next 5 years.

However penetrating the European market will not be too easy-- for instance the German market is already divided between Amazon, Vivendi and Sky Deutschland, while German consumers are low spenders compared to their UK and N. American counterparts. Then again Netflix found success in Scandinavia, which also has similar high cable TV penetration and online competition.

Currently Neflix counts 13.8m international subscribers, with total subscribers clocking at 50m. It already operates in the UK, Ireland, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands, as well as N. and Latin America.

Go Europeans Will Comprise One-Fifth of All Netflix Subscribers by 2015 (IHS)