Netflix Reaches 1 Million Subscribers In UK, Ireland

Netflix is now streaming TV shows and movies to more than one million subscribers throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland.

The online streaming service launched in the UK and Ireland seven months ago at a charge of £6 ($10) per month for online streaming service. Unlike the United States where Netflix has largely led the online streaming service it entered the UK in direct competition with already established streaming rental service LoveFilm.

LoveFilm is an Amazon-owned provider and while it is the largest competition in the sector Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has regularly called BSkyB the company’s main focus. Sky is a big player in the video streaming sector in the UK, already operating a streaming product of its own known as Now TV. Sky also has the advantage of running its own satellite services provider for which it can attract new video streaming customers.

According to Hastings:

“With Sky Movies and Sky Atlantic, they’re the ones with big content. LoveFilm has some strengths but [we] are both competing against each other, against BSkyB.”

Hastings also admitted that Netflix must be more aggressive in its movie purchasing attempts during upcoming public auction bids if the company wants to take further its market share overseas and in the United States.

Netflix in the meantime seems to be on the patch to recovery, after raising subscription costs by up to 60% and losing nearly 800,000 customers in 2011 the company rebounded last quarter with an overall profit of $6 million thanks in large part to the company’s North American operations which have begun once again to attract new users.