Netflix will soon launch cheap mobile-only plan in India

Back in April, we reported that Netflix has started testing a new set of mobile-only plans in a bunch of countries in Asia. These new plans will offer users a way to buy Netflix subscriptions at low price. During the testing period, Netflix offered a mobile-only plan for $0.95 per week.

During its earnings call yesterday, Netflix confirmed that it has decided to launch mobile-only plans in India in Q3 later this year.

“After several months of testing, we’ve decided to roll out a lower-priced mobile-screen plan in India to complement our existing plans. We believe this plan, which will launch in Q3, will be an effective way to introduce a larger number of people in India to Netflix and to further expand our business in a market where Pay TV ARPU is low (below $5),”

Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos said that they are seeing nice, steady increases in engagement in India. “Growth in that country(India) is a marathon and we are in it for the long haul,” he added.

In the past quarter, Netflix managed to only add 2.7M new subscriptions, the lowest number in the recent years. In fact Netflix lost US subscribers for the first time since Q3 2011. Netflix is hoping that these new mobile-only plans for India will attract a significant number of new subscribers to its platform.