In a letter to shareholders, Netflix’s CEO, Reed Hastings, confirmed today that the company will launch a cheaper mobile-only subscription plan in India soon. In March, Netflix affirmed it’s testing a $3.50 plan for just phones in India.
Hastings said that the mobile-only will be effective to increase the consumer base as people pay below $5 per month for content consumption:
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 the launch of this plan.
Netflix‘s current cheapest plan in India costs Rs. 450 ($6.54), and grants access to all of its content at standard definition quality on just one screen.. Comparatively other competitors like Hostar and Amazon Prime have cheaper annual plans at Rs. 999 ($14.5).
India’s internet market is dominated by mobile-first consumers and it’ll reach a mark of 800 million smartphone owners by 2022, according to a Cisco report. The country also has the cheapest data plans in the world, so mobile video consumption is as high as 190 minutes per day.
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According to App Annie’s ‘State of Mobile’ report for 2019, Netflix is the highest-grossing streaming app in India. However, it doesn’t feature in the top five video apps for the country where people spend most of their time. Netflix could change that with its upcoming mobile-only plan.
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