Later today Netflix is scheduled to release its financial results from the last quarter. While investors are bracing for the worst, Netflix has decided to announce some major news ahead of time. It revealed today that the United Kingdom as well as Ireland will be the next big world territories to gain access to Netflix"s streaming service.
Netflix will go live sometime in that part of the world in early 2012. So far there"s no word yet on what kind of content will be available for UK and Ireland users to stream (we hope Doctor Who, Blake"s 7 and Primeval are among the TV shows that make the cut). Netflix said the service will be available on PCs, Macs, mobile phones and tablets. There"s no word if the service will be made available for any of the big game consoles.
As Engadget points out, Netflix will actually have a homegrown competitor in the UK and Ireland. Lovefilm, acquired by Amazon earlier this year, has been providing its own streaming video service to those countries and other parts of Europe for some time. It should be interesting to see these two services duke it out.
We will be watching for Netflix"s earnings report later today. The company has seen its overall subscriber base go down by at least 1 million customers, and as a result its stock price has plummeted from some huge highs earlier this year. We suspect that today"s subscriber numbers could show a even larger loss than Netflix predicted a few weeks ago. If that happens, the company"s stock could take an even bigger nose dive.