New subscribers to the platform must go to the small lines if they want to subscribe to the cheapest offer without any advertising. A way to push users to choose the light version and interspersed with Netflix ads.
Has Netflix found a more profitable business model than its classic subscription? On the platform’s website, new subscribers now have three subscription options.
The Premium, at 17.99 euros per month, which offers all the possible options for watching its films and series. The Standard at 13.49 euros per month which offers lower video quality. And finally the offer Essential with advertising (5.99 euros per month) which implies an even lower resolution, the impossibility of downloading programs and obviously pubs to interrupt the viewing.
However, there is a fourth option: it is the offer Essential at 8.99 euros, this time without advertising (but which allows downloading).
In reality, Netflix obviously does not intend to tell you (too much) about it. To see it arrive on the screen, you have to click on the small lines at the bottom: “Want more options? See all offers”.
This little game of hide and seek is not only in France. This is also the case in Germany or in the UK, which could correspond to the countries where the service with ads has found its audience. Last week, an NPA Conseil and Harris Interactive study showed that 1.4 million Essential subscriptions with ads were taken out in December in France.
In detail, this represents 860,000 new customers and 500,000 Essential customers who have chosen the option with advertisements. If the subscription is less expensive, it therefore makes it possible to garner new subscribers in a context of very strong competition, while offsetting (at least in part) the loss of income with advertising revenue.
Netflix presents its results for the fourth quarter of 2022 on January 19. They will give a first idea of what this offer with advertisements that the platform seeks so much to offer really brings in.
