Australia’s subscription-based online video sector could start to feel over-crowded this year.

Pay-TV giant Foxtel played its hand in February with the launch of Presto, a paid movie offering, set to be followed by services from the country’s two biggest free-to-air players, Nine and Seven.

At the same time Virgin, which sold its UK pay-TV business to Liberty Global last year, is reportedly ramping up an offering of its own too.

All this to head off US giant Netflix, which hasn’t launched in Australia, or announced plans to, but may already have somewhere between 50,000 and 200,000 subscribers in the country, using virtual private networks (VPNs) to bypass territorial blocks on the service.

For Stephen Langsford, founder and executive chairman of ten-year-old incumbent Quickflix, this activity represents encouraging signs of digital media consumption, with broadband becoming prevalent in major cities, expanding the pie.

Quickflix, an HBO-backed DVD rental and video streaming business with a similar business model to Netflix, has always run at a loss. After a major restructure, it is in better shape than ever and up for the challenge, Langford argues.

A still sizable DVD retail and rental market, plus ~US$2.5 billion spent on pay-TV subscriptions each year, offers a large space where online video can grow, he contends.

“We are the most pervasive streaming service,” he says. “Bring it on.”