How Max’s international expansion is paying off

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Going global has been good business for Max. Since the video streamer’s debut in 39 Latin American and Caribbean countries a year ago, it has expanded to more than 70 markets globally, including Europe and Asia. These new audiences have helped grow its user base. In its most recently reported quarter, Max added 7.2 million global subscribers, bringing its total subscriber count to 110 million.

As its audience grows, Max is also focusing on premium content and cracking down on password-sharing. JB Perrette, president and CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery global streaming and games, appeared on Fast Company‘s Most Innovative Companies podcast to talk Max’s international expansion, how it leverages existing IP, and how the company is using AI to improve the streaming experience.

You’ve said that globalization is the biggest aspect of Max’s growth efforts. Why is that? 

The media business has always been a global business, but it’s been global as a collection of local or regional players. The advent of streaming has enabled an ability to program and entertain a global audience. We have franchises and intellectual property—like DC characters or Harry Potter—that has global fan bases. Our original content like House of Dragon and Euphoria also has global fan bases. We used to only be able to tap into portions of that base and then we’d sell those content rights to players in local markets. With the advent of streaming, we’re able to do it all ourselves. Long term we’re very bullish on what this means from the consumer standpoint and from a business perspective. Having a business that has all the advantages and the cost leverage of a global scale is an attractive and long-term lucrative business.

Given the opportunity for global expansion, why did it take you so long to launch outside the U.S.? 

This company was born out of a legacy Warner media business and a legacy Discovery company that came together about two and a half years ago. Both companies have been very active globally, but they had been pursuing different strategies. We spent the first 12 to 18 months rebuilding the technology platform and the product itself to deliver [a better] experience, and support live events, high concurrency entertainment, and more features.

We started it in May 2023 in the U S. At the beginning of 2024, Max was only available in one market with that new platform and new product. At the end of 2024, we [were] in 74 markets. We’re in Latin America, key markets in Europe, in Asia, and obviously the U.S. 

Has your international expansion changed your programming? 

We already have a history of producing great local content around the world– in Europe and Latin America in particular. We then have augmented it over these last few years by producing more local originals just for Max. You’re starting to see the fruits of that and you’re starting to see that content do great numbers in its regional market. We just did a series based on the book and movie Like Water for Chocolate that came out in Mexico. We’re leveraging franchises around the world that we may not necessarily own and we’re starting to see those stories travel better, because while they may be in different languages, they’re universal in themes.

What are some of the product improvements you’re trying to make over the next couple of years?

Our head of product likes to say that the product journey is a game of inches. So literally the product road map and the feature improvements are hundreds of different small things. We’ve rolled out this back half of this year what we call whole page optimization, which uses algorithms to recommend content based on what you’ve watched. The key art that shows up should also be personalized based on what we think is most appealing to you. 

You recently rolled out an ad-supported tier. How does that fit in with your strategy?

If you exclude markets that we can’t get into like China, Russia, and India, there’s about 650 million broadband households [that could subscribe to Max]. We still have over close to half the world to get after. With our ad-supported offering, we can attract different customer bases that have different profiles. There are customers around the world who are more price sensitive and are willing to pay, you know, 30, 40, 50% less and still get [access to] our content. As you roll out in more markets around the world that have lower income or GDP per capita, [having an ad-supported tier] is a way to tap into more customers. 

Netflix was focused on subscriber growth for a long time. Now the company is focused on turning a profit. How do you balance those two factors at Max?

As the leader in the space, they have the great advantage of already having reached a lot of scale around the world. Not surprisingly, at some point, you can’t keep growing forever in terms of that scale. I think what they’ve said about no longer reporting subscribers starting in next year is an acknowledgement of the fact that they’re becoming slightly more mature as a business.

We’re in a very different position. We’re late to the party. The good news is we still have a lot of growth ahead of us over these next two years. We have opportunities [to acquire] tens of millions of subscribers as we finish our global rollout and demonstrate a better content lineup. That growth continues to be really important for us to report. Nobody has done profit and growth at the same time. I would argue that Max and WBD are the pioneers of that. We need to be able to show that this is a legitimate business and that we can grow it.

We talk about streaming consolidation a lot at the office. Ten years from now, are we just going to see one or two dominant services?

We’re an IP and storytelling company. If you’re a fan of Batman, you’re not going to get it anywhere else. If you’re a fan of Harry Potter, you’re not going to get it anywhere else. Same for Superman, or 90 Day Fiancé. That’s what makes us unique. So I don’t believe it’s a winner-takes-all situation. I don’t think there’s a monopoly on ideas or great stories. The number of streamers will shrink down, but it won’t just be due to M&A activity. There’ll be some of that, but you’re also going to see creative partnerships, like our Disney bundle.

How is AI factoring into your business?

Right now AI is used on the operating side, or the process side. It’s helping distill and speed up processes. We were talking earlier about creating more video, interstitials or, trailers or break-in moments to be able to show you clips from the series in the streaming product. For some of the content, we have trailers, but trailers aren’t necessarily always the best selling proposition. We’re leveraging different AI tools to help us take a first cut. A person can prompt AI with “Pick up all the chatter that exists in the internet space about people’s favorite moments from the show, digest that, and give us five different 30-second edits of this series or movie that have the high likelihood of hitting the mark with customers.” Then a human looks at those five cuts and makes a judgment as to the best one. Prior to those AI-enabled tools coming out, we would have had to spend a lot of time and a lot of money and a lot of effort just trying to get to those cuts. We’re also using AI to figure out where to insert ad breaks on our ad-supported tier. We may be able to come up with an ad break methodology that is dynamic rather than one size fits all. We’re also using it for closed-captioning.

A lot of great material on Max comes from existing IP. The White Lotus sort of came out of nowhere during the pandemic. Do you think there’s still a future for that kind of non-IP based hit?

One hundred percent. Nobody is better in the business when it comes to creating new breakouts. If you think of the track record of HBO, the vast majority of stories they’ve told are not coming from generally known media.

The top four series right now for HBO are The Last of Us, Euphoria, The White Lotus, and House of Dragon. Euphoria is a true original, so is The White Lotus. We’re doing more with existing franchises, but we’re not doing that instead of coming up with original ideas. It’s a complement rather than a substitution.

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