OTT giant Netflix is reportedly testing long term subscription plans in India. According to a report in Economic Times, this is an attempt by the company to expand its subscriber base in the country. This latest strategy by Netflix includes offers for a 3-month, 6-month and 1 year subscription plan with discounts that go up to 50% when compared to the price of its current monthly plan. According to Gadgets 360, this subscription plan which is in a test phase is first being done in India. The subscription plan is open to select users on both the mobile and web.
Currently, Netflix is available for viewers in India for a monthly fee of Rs 199 on mobile. The other monthly plans as they exist are Rs 499 for basic, Rs 649 for standard and Rs 799 for a premium subscription. Now, as per the long term subscription plan, a user would need to pay only a subscription fee of Rs 4,799 per year for the premium category, which if paid on a monthly basis would be Rs 9,588 - which is effectively a 50% difference.
On Friday at a media event, Netflix chief executive Reed Hastings had announced that the company would be spending around Rs 3000 crore on content programming in Indian alone in 2019-20. India is clearly a vital market for Netflix which has bankrolled around 40 original series and films here. In April, Netflix had said that around 15 new original Indian films are expected to be available to its members across the world by the end of 2020.
Competing video streaming platforms like Amazon Prime Video, Hotstar and Zee 5 have already been offering annual subscription plans to viewers in India. It remains to be seen if Netflix’s new strategy to include long term subscription plans actually results in a major bump in its subscription base in India.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)