Netflix announced earlier this year at the Consumer Electronics Show 2016 that the online video streaming service was expanding to just about every other country on the planet, with the exception of one or two, and China was on that list. Netflix did say back then that it was working with authorities in the People’s Republic to bring its service to the lucrative market. That’s not going to happen as Netflix has given up on trying to break into the Chinese market.
Regulatory channels are proving to be too much for Netflix so much so that it has decided against establishing an official presence in China. The company will now sell its popular original shows like Daredevil and Narcos to China’s media companies.
“The regulatory environment for foreign digital content services in China has become challenging,” Netflix said in a report sent to its shareholders, “We now plan to license content to existing online service providers in China rather than operate our own service in China in the near term,” it added.
Netflix is keeping the door open to a presence in China as it says it still has a “long term desire to serve the Chinese people directly,” the company added that it hopes to launch its service in China “eventually.”
That’s definitely going to take quite a bit of time so until then folks in the People’s Republic will only be able to enjoy Netflix’s original content through local media companies.
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