In a industry dominated by a small number of firms, Netflix has been able to establish itself through its own competitive advantage. While many competitors such as Hulu, Amazon and HBO offer their own streaming services, Netflix has established an advantage through developing exclusive content only available to Netflix subscribers. Originally in order to differentiate themselves from the competition, Hastings pursued exclusive licensing agreements and partnerships in order to develop this original content. In 2013, Netflix released the now famous political drama House of Cards, which would be the first exclusive content to arrive to a streaming service. Headlined by actors like Kevin Spacey, the announcement spawned heavy intrigue from not only Netflix customers, but from their competition’s audience as well. After …show more content…
Since 2010, Netflix adopted an expansion strategy in the international market in order to offset its slow domestic growth in the US. Just like in the US market, Netflix partners with international talent in order to produce exclusive local programs overseas. For example, Netflix partnered with Japan in the fall of 2015 in order to produce streaming programs for its Japanese audience. In its deal, Netflix provided funding for the development of a number of programs in exchange for exclusive streaming rights to these programs. By doing this, Netflix has expanded its competitive advantage internationally, by restricting what other streaming services are allowed to offer to its customers outside of America. In 2016, Netflix announced its streaming service would be available in 130 new countries, expanding its reach to over 190 total countries worldwide. This means that in nearly every country of the world, Netflix is offering streaming of its own produced content that other services cannot