Netflix Mobile-Only Proposal for India and other “select countries.”

The mobile-only plan costs half of the basic subscription for Netflix yet is still high-priced when compared to rivals Fox’s service Hotstar and Amazon.

Netflix is working on a subscription plan for mobile to be competitive in its pricing and compete with its rivals Fox’s Hotstar and Amazon.  It’s priced at $3.63 (around 250 Indian rupees) a month, which is half the cost of Netflix’s usual plan at $7.27 (approximately 500 rupees).

Even with its reduced price, the package is still much more expensive if you compare it with its Indian rivals. Amazon’s annual subscription costs $14.50 (around 1,000 rupees) a month which equates to about $1.20 monthly.  This is the same that Hotstar charges a month for a premium service. Hotstar offers a reduced service package too for $5.29 a year.

Netflix is still testing its mobile-only subscription plan and hasn’t officially launched it.  A spokesperson from Netflix said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter that Netflix would be trying out various options in its chosen countries.  Their members will be able to watch Netflix on mobile devices for a much lower price and subscribe in shorter periods.  They also said that the options would not be available to everyone and they might never launch the plans after the testing period.

The TV giant first tried a plan for mobiles only in Malaysia as well as other territories that they didn’t name in November 2018.  The world is anticipating an official rollout at some point in the future.

The digital market in Indian is booming thanks to attractive deals initiated by Reliance Jio, the telecom giant. And, it’s mobiles that are driving the demand for movies and video consumption in India.  Media Partners Asia state that 88% of devices that consumers use to watch video is now mobile devices.

The online audience for watching videos in India rose to 225 million last year, a number that is projected to increase two-fold over the coming five years.  This is a userbase that is 67% greater than the entire US population (in the USA, the number of video users online is approximately 227.5 million).

What is more, India’s 1.3bn population that is connected to the internet by phoneline has surged to 36% last year, an increase from 24% the previous year.  It’s expected to grow even more to reach 58% by 2023, say Media Partners Asia.