They have rolled out in their home market of the USA as well as Canada, Latin America, UK & Ireland, Scandinavia, and the Netherlands, but it appears now as though Netflix have their sights on more new branches of their service, with Australia rumoured as the prime location for their next expansion.

The long-standing rumours have been growing in intensity over the past few months in spite of measurements earlier this year by the American company claiming that Australia was ‘too small’ a market to move into, with sources suggesting that they are now ‘active’ in the country and that a service launch is ‘imminent’, over-ruling previous plans to ‘solidify’ their European expansions first.

It is believed that the change in opinion will see Australia become a primary target for service roll-out in 2014 alongside France and Germany, with the former having the benefit of being an English-speaking country that will easily be able to receive content from the American/British/Canadian versions, including Netflix exclusives such as House of Cards and Arrested Development. This will come alongside plans for local exclusives, such as children’s show H2O spin-off Mako’s Mermaids, a Network Ten show screened exclusively online through Netflix away from Australia.

A Netflix source failed to confirm any developments, though reporting: “At this point we have not announced any further details about our international expansion.”

The decision to press forward with the plans is believed to have come from recent revelations that around 20,000 Australians are already Netflix subscribers… to the American version, managing to get around geo-blocking (amongst other restrictions) to consume content, whilst the fast popularity of the Netflix brand in its European markets has also showcased a positive sign for such proposals.

Speaking of the potential threat of competition, Australian pay-TV market leaders Foxtel (who are looking to offer movies on-demand with their upcoming subscription service ‘Presto’)have suggested they could expand their service to include TV streaming on-demand, according to chief executive Richard Freudenstein, who speaking at the recent Screen Fever conference in Melbourne said of the potential American invasion (of Netflix and/or Hulu): “Look, we always welcome competition. We’ll come out with a service that is better than the overseas services will be.” Of Netflix, he said: “There are a lot bigger markets they can conquer first before they come here.”

While the lack of a language barrier makes an expansion of Netflix into Australia (and by possible extension its neighbours) theoretically simple, will they be pulled off as a success now such a service looks like becoming a reality?