Netflix passes 1 million subscribers in Canada

[Emil]

Netflix has announced it recently passed 1 million members in Canada. The streaming giant says it surpassed its own expectations for growth, achieving the milestone in just 10 months.

The 1 millionth member actually registered last month. Amanda Bell James, from Flin Flon, Manitoba, joined Netflix and instantly won a lifetime Netflix membership.

"We're thrilled that Canadians have embraced Netflix so rapidly, and we're equally proud to have welcomed one million members in such a short period," Reed Hastings, Netflix CEO and co-founder, said in a statement. "Our focus remains on building up the breadth and range of movies and TV shows to watch instantly, as well as constantly improving the experience, and we look forward to welcoming many more new members."

Netflix arrived in Canada , the first country to get the service outside of the US, in September 2010. Unlike in the US, the company doesn't have a mail service in Canada, but it does offer unlimited streaming for $8 CAD per month.

Unfortunately, the selection for Canadians is still not as good as what Americans get, but Netflix has been working hard on fixing this. In December 2010, the company announced licensing agreements with content providers All3Media International, CBC, FremantleMedia Enterprises, Global TV, and Maple Pictures. In March 2011, Netflix announced a new five-year licensing agreement with Paramount Pictures specifically for Canada.

Netflix Canada has had one major issue in the country. Earlier this year, the company decided to change the default quality setting for video streams in response to monthly bandwidth data caps set by Canadian Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Users can still switch back to the old option if they do not want to sacrifice quality.

This allows Canadians to watch 30 hours of streaming from Netflix in a month and only consume 9GB of data. Previously, the data ranged from 30GB to 70GB, depending on whether the content was HD or not. Despite the lessening of picture quality with these new settings, Netflix insists "the experience continues to be great."

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https://www.techspot.com/news/44978-netflix-passes-1-million-subscribers-in-canada.html

 

[Guest]

why is it that every single writer doesn't know Canada is in "America". As a side note: the USA is in America too...

 

[Tekkaraiden]

Just two things,

First not every canadian isp added bandwidth caps, only Rogers, Shaw and Bell did. The independent isp providers (which I subscribe to one) had to petition our government not to be forced to add bandwidth caps (which they won).

Second the quality change is not very noticeable when viewing SD content (which surprised me) 6 feet away. It is a little more noticeable with HD but not having netflix pause several times to catch up is nice. As the writer of the article stated it is completely changeable at anytime.

@guest: That's your complaint about the article?

 

[Chazz]

@ Guest. He said "Americans" talking about the citizens of U.S.A. Same as he said Canadians while talking about the citizens of Canada. What else would you prefer him to say? The United Staters? The Americans of the states?

I think you need to learn reading comprehension before commenting. There's nothing wrong with what he said.

 

[Guest]

@Guest: So you refer to people in all countries within North America as Americans?

Cuba is considered part of North America, do you refer to Cubans as Americans? You're confused, maybe take a nap and rest your mind.