Netflix is finally starting to make its presence felt in at least some Central and East European markets.
Nowhere is this more the case than in Poland, where just this week the company announced it will produce its first local language series. Made by The Kennedy/Marshall Company and The House Media Company, it is will be released and made available to Netflix viewers around the world in 2018.
This is certainly an important step and more projects in Poland are expected to follow, probably in the near future.
Netflix began to localise its service in Poland in September 2016 and has gradually been making it more accessible to viewers. Since this July, for instance, it has been offered to T-Mobile Polska subscribers, and following this week’s extension of an international agreement between Netflix and Orange it should soon also become available to Orange TV customers in Poland.
When it comes to usage, Netflix is already well established in the Polish VOD chart but still some way behind the market leaders, which include VoD.pl, player.pl and ipla.tv. According to figures produced by Gemius/PBI for Wirtualne Media, it had 742,857 real users, employing PCs, smartphones and tablets, as of May this year.
While such figures are not so readily available for other CEE markets, we know that Netflix has been active in at least some. In Romania, for instance, it fully localised its service, also in May this year.
It also introduced some limited localised content in Croatia back in February and may do so in Ukraine, having begun to cooperate with some studios late last year.
On the other hand, there are increasing doubts as to how long it can continue to operate in Russia in its current form. Given new rules governing the permitted level of foreign ownership in on demand services, it seems that Netflix will have to enter into a partnership with a local company if it is to survive.
All in all, it looks like a mixed picture for Netflix 20 months after it launched in CEE. Strides are certainly being made in countries such as Poland and to a lesser degree Romania, thanks in no small part to agreements with local operators, while in others question marks still remain.
