Chennai: Netflix has confirmed that it will be bringing in a less expensive subscription plan for India as the firm looks to accelerate growth in the country.
Announced at the Q2 earnings call, the company has not confirmed a launch date for the new plan or the specifics. It is to be made available here in this quarter.
“After several months of testing, we’ve decided to roll out a lower-priced mobile-screen plan in India to complement our existing plans. We believe this plan, which will launch in Q3, will be an effective way to introduce a larger number of people in India to Netflix and to further expand our business in a market where Pay TV ARPU is low (below $5). We will continue to learn more after launch of this plan,” said CEO, Netflix Reed Hastings.
At present, Netflix offers three subscription plans in India which include Rs 500 for standard definition and streaming on one device, Rs 650 for HD and streaming on two devices and Rs 800 for Ultra HD streaming on four devices simultaneously.
However, it faces strong competition from the likes of Hotstar, Amazon Prime Video, Sony Liv and Zee5.
During the Q2 earnings call, the firm announced it added 2.7 million new subscribers globally, lesser than the five million estimate.
“Our missed forecast was across all regions, but slightly more so in regions with price increases. We don’t believe competition was a factor since there wasn’t a material change in the competitive landscape during Q2, and competitive intensity and our penetration is varied across regions,” says Hastings.
| In numbers |
| * The streaming service lost around 1.3 lakh subscribers in the United States, a 12 per cent degrowth, possibly because of the increase in subscription prices.
* It had added nearly 10 million subscribers during the first three months of the year, more than any quarter since the debut of its service 12 years ago. * Netflix ended June with 151.6 million worldwide subscribers and projected that it will add seven million subscribers from July through September. |