Netflix plans to launch in South Africa in January 2016, according to industry sources familiar with the situation.

This comes after the video streaming service confirmed in January 2015 that South Africa forms part of its global expansion plans.

Netflix’s global expansion strategy involves “acceleration to 200 countries”, or being available in almost every country in the world by the end of 2016.

It then intends to “generate material global profits” from 2017 onwards.

“We have not provided details of when we plan to go where, but you can be confident South Africa is among the countries we intend to serve sometime in the next two years,” said Netflix at the time.

Netflix was asked about the January launch rumours, but said it has nothing to add at this stage.

A number of video on demand services have launched in South Africa in the past 18 months, including a Netflix competitor from Naspers called ShowMax.

ShowMax recently launched its international KykNet service, offering almost 6,000 hours of Afrikaans programming in the UK, USA, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand for $8.99 per month.

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