Six months after the launch of its cheapest subscription and with ads, Netflix He held his first event Up front. It was intended for the main referents of the advertising industry. The most notorious fact of the presentation was that the cheap plan of the streaming platform already has almost 5 million active users per month globally.
Of course, the expression “globally” is somewhat pretentious, considering that Netflix with ads is only available in 12 countries. Beyond that, at first glance the figure is impressive and seems to suggest that the affordable subscription is achieving great success. But is it really so?
A key point to note is that Netflix is talking about “active users per month” and not “subscribers”. They are two completely different metrics. And since the information from the platform is partial, it doesn’t paint a complete picture of the actual reach of your ad-supported plan.
So far the streaming service hasn’t disclosed how many subscribers its cheapest plan has. And the number of active users per month can be somewhat misleading, since it includes all the inhabitants of a house that use different profiles of the same account. Thus, it goes without saying that the number of subscribers to Netflix with ads is lower than the number of people who use it each month. He crux the question is how much lower.
Netflix subscription with ads wants to gain traction
Rumors suggest that the number of subscribers to the cheap plan today it would be between 1.2 and 1.6 million. Figures that do not sound unreasonable, if we divide the 5 million active users per month by a hypothetical average of 3 or 4 inhabitants for each household in which a Netflix account with ads is used. However, since there is no official information, it is nothing more than speculative data.
From Netflix they have only said that the subscriber base of their plan with ads has “more than doubled” since the beginning of the year. The Wall Street Journal indicates, meanwhile, that the membership in question had 937,616 subscribers in the United States until last March. This would mean that, if the total rumored figures were correct, the ad-supported alternative would have a much greater penetration in the North American country than in the rest of the markets where it is available.
This does not necessarily mean that the Netflix option with ads is not interesting in other territories. A short time ago it was known that 4 out of 10 new subscribers in Spain chose the 5.99 euro plan. An interesting number that is above average. According to the company, today the ad-supported alternative is chosen by 25% of new registrants in the countries where it is available.
It is clear that the cheap subscription is still a new product, with barely half a year on the market. It has a long way to go and evolve, in a segment where competition between platforms is becoming very strong. But without yet being a global rage, it seems to be taking a firmer first step than people think.
An interesting first step
Assuming that the cheap subscription today has 1.5 million subscribers, we would be talking about 0.65% of the 232.5 million accounts that exist in the service. At first glance it is little, but it has nuances. If in just 6 months, and being available only in 12 countries, Netflix has already achieved that close to 1% of its global subscribers are using the plan with ads, it is not to be despised. The model is clearly still in its infancy, but it can be expanded very aggressively when it starts to open up to more markets.x
Of course Netflix’s success with ads doesn’t just depend on subscribers, but also the presence of advertisers on the platform. Therefore, attracting them is crucial. The company claims that its users are 4 times more likely to interact with ads on Netflix than on other streaming services, and more than 4.5 times more likely compared to traditional TV.
Another interesting fact is that almost 80% of the content played with the Netflix plan with ads is watched from a TV. While with regard to the public that chooses this subscription, more than 70% of users are between the ages of 18 and 49; while the average age is 34 years.
