Despite the year that Netflix has given us, and we are in February, it must be recognized that Ted Sarandos’s platform does not stitch without a thread. We already knew that the existence of a cheap ad-supported plan (launched last November) went hand in hand with the plan to end account sharing (executed this month). A play that is not understood without the other. And indeed, it has worked for them. And a lot.
According to the metrics consultancy Kantar, in its study “Entertainment on Streaming” (which includes El Español), 4 out of 10 new Netflix subscribers in Spain have opted for the Basic Plan with ads. A model that, let’s remember, is cheaper (5.49 euros per month) with an image quality of 720p but with a somewhat limited catalog.
A plan that was the great hope of Netflix to boost again a growth rate of subscriptions that had been stopped. As published by GECA last month in its OTT Barometer, the share of customers with said plan is estimated at 8.6%.
Ads yes, but don’t change the quality
Of those, almost half were already Netflix users. Specifically, the vast majority of the normal basic plan, with a much smaller percentage of the Standard plan and an almost derisory percentage of the Premium plan. That is to say, prefer to pay less in exchange for ads but not in exchange for diminishing quality.
However, it is not clear that this translates into a massive transfer between “non-paying” users of the platform. Only 6.5% of subscribers to the plan with ads admit that until then they had used the service with a given password. It will be necessary to see if that percentage rises now that the end of sharing has been launched.