HBO Max will expand to 15 more European countries from March 8, WarnerMedia has confirmed.
The move marks the second phase in the streamer’s staggered international launch, which will see territories including Portugal, Poland, the Netherlands and Croatia gain access to HBO's streaming platform in the coming months (we’ve included the full list of new regions further down this article).
The expansion will take the total number of countries covered by the service to 61, with six more – including Greece and Turkey – set to be added later in 2022.
In each new territory, the full suite of HBO Max features, including the ability to stream to three devices simultaneously and create up to five individual user profiles, will be made available to customers. Both subscription tiers will be available, too.
The complete list countries set to receive access to HBO Max on March 8 is as follows: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Moldova, Montenegro, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia.
WarnerMedia began its rollout of HBO Max across Europe in October 2021, when the streamer launched in the Nordics (Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland) as well as in Spain and Andorra. By 2026, the company hopes to have expanded the service to 190 countries.
When is HBO Max coming to the UK?
Unfortunately, UK audiences will have to wait a while longer to access HBO Max.
HBO signed a four-year contract with UK broadcaster Sky in 2019 allowing the latter to air certain HBO-produced movies and TV shows (like Succession and Euphoria), so HBO Max isn’t likely to arrive until that partnership has concluded in 2024.
That being said, the absence of HBO Max in the UK doesn’t altogether deprive British viewers of HBO-produced content. As above, many of the studio’s biggest properties are available to watch through a compatible Sky (or Now TV) subscription, with only a few movies and TV shows – like The Fallout and South Side – exceptions to the rule.
What’s more, HBO and Sky may yet broker a deal to launch HBO Max in the UK before the 2024 expiry of their current contract, though there’s been no official communications on that front.
Building momentum
This latest expansion comes shortly after WarnerMedia owner AT&T posted 2021 results that surpassed company expectations.
The HBO portfolio – that’s HBO Max and the standalone HBO channel combined – reached 73.8 million combined subscribers in December 2021, an impressive feat considering WarnerMedia opted to remove the HBO channel from Amazon’s Prime Video Channels selection at the beginning of 2021.
But, as we detailed in a previous report, the company will need to consolidate its content offering in 2022, especially given the absence of day-and-date movie releases (like Dune and The Matrix Resurrections) moving forward – a feature of the service that likely attracted several million customers last year.
What’s more, with rival services like Disney Plus and Netflix boasting far larger subscriber numbers (118.1 million and 214 million, respectively, as of October 2021), WarnerMedia will hope the ongoing expansion of its HBO Max service across Europe will provide a welcome audience boost.
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