Netflix chief sees little progress on expanding into China

Netflix’s CEO said on Tuesday that the company has not seen any progress toward its goal of expanding into China, according to Reuters.

{mosads}“Same [problem] it has always been — government permissions, we got to get a specific license in China,” Reed Hastings, the founder and chief executive of the streaming brand, said.

But he insisted the company was “continuing to work on it.”

Earlier this year, Netflix turned its service on in 130 new countries on the same day. It is now available in over 190 countries, but the service remains offline in China, a huge market for any global tech company.

“Right now we’re in the relationship-building phase,” Hastings said at the time.

American tech companies — and particularly internet firms — have struggled to get access to or dominate the Chinese market.

Sometimes those struggles are the result of traditional competition: Uber announced this year that it would sell its Chinese assets to Didi Chuxing, its primary rival in the country.

But problems with the Chinese government have often made it hard for companies to get a foothold in the country. Apple, for example, saw its iBooks store and iTunes movies service shut down in the country earlier this year. The company’s CEO, Tim Cook, has made multiple visits to China in an attempt to improve the country’s relationships there since the services were blocked.

Google also moved its search operations to Hong Kong from mainland China in 2010 because of censorship concerns, but is expected to re-enter the market.