Netflix raises subscription fees in the US. Will there be a price hike in Malaysia?

Netflix is introducing a new price list for U.S. subscribers. The new pricing for the standard plan is now USD 14 (RM58.22) a month—a USD 1 (RM4.16) increase. The new premium tier cost is USD 18 a month (RM74.85) a month—a USD 2 (RM8.32) increase.

“As always we offer a range of plans so that people can pick a price that works best for their budget… (Prices are being updated) so that we can continue to offer more variety of TV shows and films,” said a Netflix spokesperson.

Netflix did increase the cost of some plans in Canada. We don’t know yet if there will be price changes in other countries like Malaysia, but a price hike here might not be for a while.

Netflix rolls out price changes on a country-by-country basis and the change “in the US does not influence or indicate a global price change,” said the spokesperson. The price hikes are also because Netflix is looking to invest more heavily into its content slate and product features. 

The company has increased its annual content budget every single year over the last seven years. Even during the pandemic, Netflix hasn’t slowed down as their content budget for 2020 is a whopping USD 18.5 billion (RM76.9 billion).

With the new price hike, Netflix’s standard price is USD 1 less than the price for HBO Max—which is USD 15 (RM62.38) a month. But it’s a lot more than the price for Apple TV+ in the U.S. (USD 5 a month) and Hulu (USD 5.99 a month).

According to analyst Ross Benes, people get “a lot of value for not a whole lot of money”. He also added that Netflix is becoming an even more central streaming service in people’s lives during the pandemic, so people will pay that extra dollar.

Netflix prices in Malaysia currently start at RM17 a month for a mobile plan. Malaysia also has a Basic (RM35 a month), Standard (RM45 a month) and Premium (RM55 a month) options.

Weirdly, we also found that new users will get different offers at random. So far, we’ve found that some might be offered a free month, some might be offered a free second month, some get an offer for 50% off on the first two months, and some won’t get a free trial offer at all.

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