Netflix available in Poland
Big news for Polish movie and TV lovers came up on Wednesday, as the American streaming favourite Netflix opens up for the Polish public.
The company has just became available in Poland, thanks to a move to expand the reach of the online service to 130 new countries. This means that Netflix is on this day present in the astounding number of 190 countries. Currently, the service has around 70 million subscribers, the majority of who live in the US.
The step was announced by Reed Hastings, CEO and co-founder of Netflix, at Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, who called it the beginning of a global TV network. Hard to disagree, taking into consideration that the service is now live in such places as Russia, Ghana, Chile or Solomon Islands.
The company, which started as a DVD rental business, is presently not only the biggest streaming service in the world (and certainly the most widely known), but in recent years also became active as a content creator, with the such original series as Emmy-winning House of Cards or Orange is the New Black.
Polish viewers are now free to register at the Netflix website and sign up to one of three payment plans: basic, standard and premium. The monthly prices for the service are 7.99 EUR, 9.99 EUR and 11.99 EUR respectively, with a one-month trial period free of charge.
The service is available on virtually any device connecting to the internet, from laptops and tablets, to smart TVs and gaming consoles. In order to pay, you need to have a credit card or a PayPal account. Streaming is in HD and ultra HD.
Opening up for the Polish audience, Netflix has made some of its content available with Polish subtitles. However, the choice is still limited, and the viewers in Poland will have to wait some time to have all their favourite shows available in their language. The website itself doesn’t even have a Polish-language version yet.
The unexpected move spurned some positive reactions. However, there are already some comments that the prices suggested by the American company are too high for Polish consumers and that the company will need to adjust if it really wants to attract Polish viewers. Narrow choice of Polish-language content did not go unnoticed either.
There are some home streaming services present in Poland, such as VOD.pl or Ipla.tv, but certainly none of them can offer such wide content as Netflix, and although less pricey, they are not advert-free.
