Netflix has rolled out its cheapest plan yet… in India. This plan offers the service on mobile devices only and costs 199 rupees a month, which equals approximately $2.88 a month. That’s less than $35 a year, for all the ‘Stranger Things’, ‘Black Mirror’, and ‘Orange is the New Black’ you can binge. This pilot program was introduced in India first for a good reason. The country has a massive population and more smartphone users than in the United States. Among those users, 30% of time spent on their phones, is devoted to streaming TV or movies.
According to Netflix’s Director of Product Innovation Ajay Arora:
“Our members in India watch more on their mobiles than members anywhere else in the world- and they love to download our shows and films. We believe this new plan will make Netflix even more accessible and better suit people who like to watch on their smartphones and tablets—both on the go and at home.”
Netflix will monitor how well this plan goes over in India before possibly expanding into other territories. India also has the same three pricing tiers that we have here in the US– a $9/month “barebones” package that allows for standard definition streaming on one screen at a time, $13/month for hi-def on two screens, or $16/month for hi-def and 4K on up to four screens.
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In March, Netflix experimented with a 250 rupee plan (~$3.62), which was also mobile-only. I’m not sure what the difference is between the two, but I do know that in India, Netflix is the #2 streaming service behind a local service, Hotstar, which was owned by 21st Century Fox. That presumably means that it now belongs to Disney, which is a major competitor of Netflix’s. Disney now owns Hulu, one of Netflix’s biggest competitors in the US, and is about to launch Disney+, which will take another large bite out of Netflix.
In March, when that plan launched, a Netflix spokesperson said:
“We are always looking for ways to make Netflix more enjoyable and accessible. We will be testing different options in select countries, where members can, for example, watch Netflix on their mobile device for a lower price and subscribe in shorter increments of time.
“Not everyone will see these options, and we may never roll out these specific plans beyond the tests.”
I assume this plan means that you can’t stream Netflix to your phone and mirror it onto your TV, but it doesn’t specify. So we may never see this mobile-only plan in the US. Would you pay $2.88 a month for Netflix if you had to watch it on your phone?
Source: Cinema Blend
