A few months ago, Netflix was in crisis mode – or at least that’s what media had us believe. With the threat of new streaming competition on the horizon, losing subscribers it all felt like it was time to hit the panic button. Netflix decided to roll-out a mobile-only plan in India.
The mobile plan has been successful as shared by Netflix during their Q3 investor call Netflix Chieft Strategy Officer Gregory Peters said Netflix was “very very happy” with the mobile-only plan they introduced and are now looking to introduce the plan to other markets
It’s actually performing better than we tested. We’ll look at testing that in other markets, too, because we think there are other markets which have similar conditions that make it likely that, that’s going to be successful for us there as well.
Gregory Peters
The conditions that Mr Peters refers to could be referring to Indian mobile networks offering the cheapest mobile data in the world and also the fact that the mobile-only plan is offered for around $3-$4 which makes for a compelling combination.
Local players had overpriced offerings
This could also be a good lesson for local players like DEOD & Kwese Play who came out with pricing of $11.99 and $18 – at a time when local currency was pretty close in value to the US$. Unfortunately, that money didn’t offer customers anywhere near what you get from Netflix.
Zimbabwe’s extremely expensive mobile and home internet also mean most consumers just aren’t willing to experiment with VoD services.
