HBO Max will be available in 15 more European countries beginning March 8, according to WarnerMedia.
The move is the second stage of the streamer’s phased worldwide rollout, which will see areas such as Portugal, Poland, the Netherlands, and Croatia get access to HBO’s streaming platform in the coming months (the entire list of additional locations can be seen lower down this page). Also iOS 15.4 beta: AR/VR headset hints & web app push notification support found
The service will now serve 61 nations, with six more – including Greece and Turkey – due to be added later in 2022.
Customers in each new area will get access to the complete range of HBO Max features, including the option to stream to three devices at once and establish up to five distinct user profiles. Both subscription tiers will also be accessible.
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Moldova, Montenegro, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, and Slovenia are among the nations expected to gain access to HBO Max on March 8.
HBO Max will be available across the Nordics (Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland) as well as Spain and Andorra in October 2021, according to WarnerMedia. The business wants to have spread the service to 190 countries by 2026.
When is HBO Max coming to the UK?
Unfortunately, UK viewers will have to wait a little longer to have access to HBO Max.
HBO inked a four-year deal with Sky in 2019 to allow the latter to stream some HBO-produced movies and TV episodes (such as Succession and Euphoria), thus HBO Max is unlikely to appear until that collaboration ends in 2024.
However, the lack of HBO Max in the UK does not deprive British viewers of HBO-produced material entirely. As previously stated, many of the studio’s major titles are available to view via a suitable Sky (or Now TV) subscription, with only a few movies and TV episodes – such as The Fallout and South Side – serving as exceptions.
Furthermore, HBO and Sky may yet strike an agreement to launch HBO Max in the UK before their present contract expires in 2024, but there have been no official contacts on the subject.
Building momentum
This current expansion came shortly after AT&T, the business that owns WarnerMedia, reported 2021 earnings that exceeded the company’s projections.
The HBO portfolio – HBO Max and the solo HBO channel combined – achieved 73.8 million combined subscribers in December 2021, an outstanding result given WarnerMedia’s decision to remove the HBO channel from Amazon’s Prime Video Channels option at the start of 2021.
However, as we detailed in a previous report, the company will need to consolidate its content offering in 2022, particularly given the absence of day-and-date movie releases (such as Dune and The Matrix Resurrections) in the future – a feature of the service that likely drew several million customers last year.
Furthermore, with competing services like as Disney Plus and Netflix possessing significantly bigger subscriber bases (118.1 million and 214 million, respectively, as of October 2021), WarnerMedia will be hoping that the continued growth of its HBO Max service across Europe will bring a welcome audience boost.