Netflix Inc. announced Wednesday that it will expand its streaming-video service to six European countries later this year.
The Los Gatos, California-based company chose France, Germany, Luxembourg, Austria, Switzerland and Belgium, for its latest expansion, according to ABC News.
The company is looking to grow its international audience, possibly to be larger than its audience in the U.S.
Netflix had previously entered the U.K., Ireland, Finland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden in 2012, and the Netherlands last year, The Wall Street Journal reported. The streaming service has 48 million customers in over 40 countries, with 34 million in the U.S.
The company said details about pricing and other parts of the move will be revealed "at a later date." Netflix raised the price of its streaming video plan recently to $8.99 per month, one dollar higher than its previous cost. The prices in the company's international markets also increased.
Netflix had 35.7 million subscribers in the U.S. at the end of March, along with 12.7 million customers in other countries, ABC News reported. The service is looking to get between 60 million and 90 million subscribers in the U.S. in the long term, along with over 100 million subscribers in the rest of the world.
The company has suffered heavy costs due to the international expansion. Since reaching out to other countries in 2010, the company has lost $800 million internationally. However, it has been able to counterbalance these losses with its U.S. operations, such as its DVD-by-mail service.
Germany and France are the fourth and sixth largest broadband markets globally, The Wall Street Journal reported. While the U.S. had 88 million broadband homes at the end of 2013, Western Europe had 134 million.
Data shown by market researcher SNL Kagan earlier this year states that Western Europe is expected to experience a faster growth of streaming video than the rest of the world. Revenue for Western Europe is expected to increase to $1.1 billion in 2017.
