Netflix transformed itself from an international streaming company into an almost worldwide television service this week, activating its platform in more than 130 additional countries in a single move and taking its reach to more than 190 markets. The surprise announcement came Wednesday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where Chief Executive Reed Hastings told the audience that Netflix had switched on service across much of Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe while he was on stage.

The expansion is far larger than the gradual country-by-country rollout Netflix had been pursuing. The company ended 2015 operating in about 60 countries and had previously said it expected to be available in most of the world by the end of 2016. Instead, Netflix compressed that timetable into one announcement. New markets include India, Russia, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Turkey, Indonesia, Vietnam and Poland, among scores of others. In its launch announcement, Netflix described the move as the arrival of a global Internet television network.

Wall Street reacted immediately. Netflix shares finished Wednesday at $117.68, up more than 9 percent, according to contemporaneous market reporting, as investors weighed the prospect that overseas growth could become an even larger part of the company’s future. The company enters these markets with nearly 70 million members worldwide, and recent subscriber growth has increasingly come from outside the United States.

A One-Day Expansion on an Unusual Scale

For a consumer technology company, the logistical scope of the launch is striking. Netflix is not simply making a website visible in new countries; it is offering a subscription video service that depends on payment systems, broadband capacity, device compatibility, language support, content licensing and local consumer demand. Yet the company chose to turn on more than 130 markets at once rather than sequence them over the course of the year.

Hastings said during the CES announcement that consumers from Singapore to St. Petersburg and from San Francisco to São Paulo would now be able to watch television shows and movies on demand. The company said it is available on personal computers, smartphones, tablets, smart televisions and game consoles, with streaming quality adjusted to available bandwidth. That technical model gives Netflix a way to enter countries with widely varying broadband conditions without building a separate service for each one.

The announcement also underscores how quickly Internet distribution is changing the economics of television. Traditional broadcasters generally expand through local stations, cable systems, satellite agreements or separately negotiated distribution partnerships. Netflix is attempting to use a single Internet-based platform as the distribution layer, while handling the more complicated work of licensing programming territory by territory.

That distinction matters because Netflix’s catalog will not be identical everywhere. The company acknowledged that programming varies by market because film and television rights are often sold geographically. The service is largely launching in English across many of the new countries, although Netflix has added Arabic, Korean, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese to the 17 languages it already supported. Hastings said the company intends to add more languages and content as it learns what viewers in the new markets want.

China Remains the Largest Missing Market

The expansion is broad but not literally universal. China remains the most important exception. Netflix said it continues to explore options for entering the country, but regulatory and licensing requirements make China a more complicated market than most of those added this week. The service also remains unavailable in Crimea, North Korea and Syria because of U.S. government restrictions on American companies.

China’s absence leaves Netflix with an enormous unresolved growth opportunity even after this week’s expansion. At the same time, launching in India, Indonesia, Russia and other highly populated markets gives the company access to hundreds of millions of additional households. India alone represents a major test of whether a U.S.-based subscription streaming service can build a meaningful audience in a market with different income levels, payment habits, languages and local entertainment industries.

Pricing will also vary. In India, for example, the service is being introduced with a basic monthly plan beginning at 500 rupees, with higher-priced plans offering additional features. The company has historically tried to keep its service simple—one monthly subscription rather than individual program purchases—but local affordability could become one of the central questions in the new markets.

International Growth Becomes More Important

The global launch arrives as investors are paying close attention to the balance between Netflix’s U.S. and international businesses. The company remains a powerful domestic service, but U.S. subscriber growth is naturally becoming harder as its installed base increases. International markets offer a much larger pool of potential new members.

That trend was already visible before this week. In Netflix’s most recent reported quarter, the company added 3.62 million members, with roughly 2.74 million of those additions coming from outside the United States, according to contemporaneous financial reporting. The figures help explain why the CES announcement was received so strongly by investors: Netflix is placing its biggest growth bet precisely where its subscriber gains have been accelerating.

The company is also increasing the amount of programming it controls directly. Netflix said it plans to release 31 new and returning original series during 2016, along with two dozen original feature films and documentaries, 30 original children’s series and a range of comedy specials. Original programming gives Netflix more flexibility than licensed programming because the company can increasingly negotiate global rights from the outset rather than assemble rights country by country.

Members watched about 12 billion hours of Netflix programming during the fourth quarter of 2015, up sharply from the same period a year earlier, according to figures Hastings presented at CES. That scale helps explain why the company is willing to make such an aggressive geographic move: Netflix is no longer testing whether Internet television can attract a mass audience. It is testing whether the same platform can serve that audience on a global basis.

A Test of Whether Internet Television Can Truly Be Global

The expansion does not guarantee that Netflix will succeed equally in all of its new territories. Broadband availability varies enormously. International credit cards are less common in some countries. Local competitors already have strong programming relationships in many markets. Government regulations can differ sharply. And the company will have to persuade consumers to pay for a service whose catalog may be smaller or less localized than what American subscribers receive.

There is also a fundamental tension between the global nature of the Internet and the territorial structure of the entertainment business. Netflix can make its technology available almost everywhere at once, but television and film rights remain fragmented among studios, broadcasters and distributors that have spent decades selling content by country or region. Netflix’s global ambitions therefore depend not only on its software and network infrastructure but also on its ability to obtain broader rights to the programming viewers want.

Still, the speed of this week’s launch establishes a new benchmark. On Wednesday morning, Netflix was a service available in roughly 60 countries. By the end of the day, it was available in more than 190. That shift occurred without new cable systems, broadcast towers or satellite fleets. It happened through software, licensing agreements, broadband networks and a decision to turn the service on.

For Netflix, the next challenge begins immediately: converting geographic availability into paying memberships. For the television industry, the larger question is whether this week marks the beginning of a model in which a company can distribute the same core television service to much of the planet at once. Netflix has now built the reach to attempt it.