by Thinus Ferreira
Netflix is doing its first-ever price hike for South Africa with its Netflix Standard plan increasing by R20 or far above inflation with a 14%-increase to R159 per month, while its Netflix Premium plan is increased even more more with a hike of R30 to R199 that is a 18%-increase.
Netflix SA is keeping the prices of its Netflix Mobile plan that it introduced in June this year capped at R49 per month, as well as its Netflix Basic plan at R99 per month that is also remaining unchanged for now.
The Netflix SA price hike will be implemented for existing subscribers of the subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) service over the next few weeks, while new Netflix SA subscribers will pay the increased price immediately.
The Netflix South Africa price hike is the first since Netflix launched in South Africa and across Africa in January 2016.
A Netflix Basic plan initially cost $7.99 (R126) in South Africa, with pricing of $9.99 (R158) for a Netflix Standard and $11.99 (R190) for a Netflix Premium plan. Netflix switched to using the South African rand for Netflix SA as payment currency in August 2018 which saw a slight decrease for the Netflix Basic and Netflix Standard plans at the time.
In response to a media query about the price increase a Netflix South Africa spokesperson confirmed to TVwithThinus that the Netflix Standard and Netflix Premium plans are increasing from Tuesday 19 October.
"This will be our first price change in South Africa since our launch in 2016 that is not related to currency change".
The spokesperson says that the increase is done "to reflect improvements to our catalogue of movies and shows and the quality of our service - and, most importantly, so that we can continue giving our members in South Africa more options and continuously increasing value".
Netflix SA says that subscribers will ne notified through email and will also receive a notification within the app 30 days ahead of their price increase. "Timing will be based on the specific member's billing cycle and will be rolled out over the course of the next few months".
Netflix's R49 mobile-only plan in South Africa and $3.99 for sub-Saharan Africa, competes against MultiChoice's Showmax streaming service that has a R39 per month mobile-only plan for South Africa that costs $2.99 in the rest of Africa.
