According to the Co-CEO of Netflix, Ted Sarandos, Squid Game is poised to become the biggest Netflix Original ever if viewership continues to hold. The success of the South Korean thriller is emblematic for the rise of non-English speaking production markets over the last couple of years. As our chart indicates, the East Asian nation leads Netflix' growing production markets in terms of sheer volume of TV shows and movies produced.
Almost five percent of globally released Netflix Originals and Exclusives in 2019 were made in South Korea. Other Asian nations like India and China are lagging behind with 2.1 and 1.9 percent shares respectively. Next to the Asian continent, the streaming giant also increased its financing efforts in Spanish-speaking countries. In 2019, Spain, Mexico and Argentina made up more than eight percent of Netflix Originals and Exclusives. The numbers for Spain come as no surprise, as the streaming company opened its first official European production hub in 2019 in Madrid.
On the other end of the spectrum, the share of former key production markets has been declining over the last couple of years. Canada, for example, was responsible for roughly eight percent of the global output of exclusive Netflix content in 2017 before it fell behind South Korea in 2019 with a share of 4.3 percent.
Netflix started pushing its international productions more strongly as early as 2017. As data from Ampere Analsyis shows, only 34 of the 65 Netflix Originals that were in production or planned in September 2017 were made in the United States.
