Netflix rolls out mobile-only plan to Malaysia

Netflix has rolled out its cheaper, mobile-only subscription plan to Malaysia three months after revealing its launch in India.

The SVoD announced on Thursday (24 October) it would offer the new plan, which is restricted to mobile or tablet-only streaming in standard definition, to customers in Malaysia.

The plan will cost RM17 (US$4) a month, and is being offered alongside existing monthly plans that start from US$7.80 a month.

The company began testing cheaper mobile-only plans in a few markets last year, including Malaysia. In July it announced it would officially launch the plan in India in the third quarter, after testing a 250 rupee (US$3.63) subscription in the market.

Announcing the news, Netflix said the mobile-only plan will broaden access to Netflix “in this truly mobile-first nation”, claiming that Netflix members in the country watch twice as much content on their phones as the average member.

It also cited statistics that 88% of Malaysians now own smartphones and 78% of the country’s internet users spent time streaming and downloading entertainment in 2018, according to the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission’s (MCMC) 2018 Internet Users Survey.

“Our members in Malaysia love to watch shows on their smartphones and tablets. With the first-ever Mobile plan in Southeast Asia, all of Netflix’s shows and movies will be even more accessible for Malaysians to stream and download,” said Netflix director of product innovation Ajay Arora.

While Netflix is offering reduced-price subscriptions in Asia, a key growth region for the service, it is slowly increasing its prices in Western markets. It increased the cost of its standard and premium tariffs in the UK by £1 and £2 respectively in May, and by US$1 - $3 in the US in January.

The streaming service added 6.8 million subscribers in its most recent quarterly results ended in September, a 23% year-on-year increase, but this was below its forecasted growth for the second quarter in a row. Of the new subscribers added, 6.3 million — or 90% — came from outside the US.