Netflix Will Increase The Rates Of All Streaming Plans In The US

Netflix has 58M subscribers in the United States alone, and they are about to face the price hike over the next three months. The basic plan, which has no HD feature, will increase from $8 to $9. While the most popular plan which is the HD streaming will increase from $11 to $13 per month. And the most expensive plan, which offers thousands of content and allows up to four users doing simultaneous streams on different devices, will increase from $14 to $16.  

According to Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, the incremental price hikes that the company has made in the past years are needed so that they can invest more in original series and for licensing popular programming. In 2017, he said that “Price is all relative to value, we’re continuing to increase the content offering, and we’re seeing that reflected in viewing around the world.” Netflix will also be raising prices of some subscription plans and will apply those rates to Latin America and Caribbean countries where it bills subscribers in US dollars. The said price increase will also directly affect the new subscribers.

Licensed content and original series can be very expensive. It has been reported that Netflix paid $100 million on retaining the streaming rights to Friends, which became one of the most popular shows in the streaming service. Additionally, Netflix is spending heavily on creating its own exclusive library which consists of new shows. To date, it has approximately 700 original shows in 2018 alone, and we can expect that more shows are coming this year.

Netflix will have to continue producing original shows to keep the interest of subscribers. Currently, Netflix has over 137 million streaming subscribers worldwide. This is the reason why one of the company’s top priorities is to build a slate of foreign TV series and films. Reportedly, Netflix has accumulated approximately $8 billion in long-term debt as of September 2018. Most of which was spent on investing so heavily in creating original content.

Netflix said in a statement, “We change pricing from time to time as we continue investing in great entertainment and improving the overall Netflix experience for the benefit of our members.” Existing subscribers will get 30 days’ notice before the new pricing takes effect.

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