Thursday, November 29, 2018
Netflix South Africa is the 5th cheapest place worldwide to use the global video streaming service, although the available library catalogue is also smaller.
A Comparitech study comparing the subscription prices of Netflix worldwide shows that South Africans are paying more and getting less when it comes to the content on offer from the global streaming service in South Africa, although Netflix South Africa is overall the 5th cheapest in the world.
In September Comparitech analysed the library size and monthly cost of Netflix subscriptions in 78 countries worldwide, and found a massive disparity. South Africans using Netflix are not getting the best value for money compared to other countries, but are far away from being the worst.
MultiChoice earlier this year said Netflix is responsible for the loss of DStv Premium subscribers in South Africa and Africa.
According to Comparitech "Which countries pay the most and least for Netflix?" report that was released on Monday, American customers may have the largest choice of titles on Netflix but don't get the best value for money.
Due to the cheap price and number of titles available, Canada is actually the most cost-effective country to watch Netflix in.
South Africa comes in at the the 5th place and doesn't have a very large Netflix library of content - only 4 291 titles (2 792 films, 1 499 TV shows).
That is likely because MultiChoice, M-Net and others pay-TV services already snapped up the rights to shows, including Netflix originals like House of Cards and Orange is the New Black that are broadcast on M-Net and are not available on Netflix.
Netflix South Africa does however have the biggest Netflix library catalogue out of all African countries causing the per title cost to be $0.00160 (or R0.02 or 2 cents) given the cheapest monthly Netflix subscription fee of R99.
Comparing just the monthly cost of Netflix, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Chile are the places where it's cheapest to subscribe to Netflix, then followed by South Africa in 5th place, Canada, India, the Philippines, Japan and Pakistan rounding out the top 10.
These cheaper countries like Brazil and South Africa do suffer however from smaller content libraries.