US video giant Netflix, which has more than 23 million subscribers in the United States and Canada, plans to expand to another country this year, founder Reed Hastings said Wednesday.

US video giant Netflix, which has more than 23 million subscribers in the United States and Canada, plans to expand to another country this year, founder Reed Hastings said Wednesday.

The Netflix chief executive, speaking at the All Things Digital technology conference in southern California, said Asia would be "very important" as the company looks to grow internationally.

"China's very tough for US companies,' he said, "but outside of China, I think Korea's a great market, Indonesia's going to be a great market, Japan's a great market, India's going to be a great market."

"We're national and trying to be a global Internet company," Hastings said. "Across the globe, there's about five billion people with mobile phones and essentially all of those five billion like video."

Hastings declined to say where Netflix would offer its service next.

"The second country (after Canada) we haven't disclosed but we'll be launching in the second half of this year," he said.

Hasting also said he expected Netflix to reach profitability in Canada less than a year after it began offering a movie-streaming service there.

"It was a huge success for us in Canada," he said. "It's continuing to grow very rapidly and that gives us enough confidence to say 'Let's go launch streaming-only around the world.'"

But he stressed that it takes time to secure rights for a particular country to begin operations.

"Over the next couple of years we have to go country by country by country by country around the globe," he said.

The Los Gatos, California-based Netflix is available in the United States and Canada with members paying a flat monthly fee for the service.

(c) 2011 AFP