Back in July 2022, we covered news that the streaming giant was losing subscribers. With so many streaming services on the market nowadays, they are facing fierce competition. The company has been planning to offer an ad-supported plan to consumers for quite some time, and putting ads in Neflix could generate as much as USD8.5 billion in revenue by 2027. This is a good move to entice people who can’t afford to pay even the most basic plan but still wish to watch Netflix.
Today, Netflix finally announced that they will be introducing a new plan called the ‘Basic with Ads’. Subscribers of this plan will be able to watch content in 720p HD resolution, but they have to watch an average of four to five ads per hour. The ads will be 15 or 30 seconds long, and they will play before and during shows/movies.
They also won’t be able to certain movies and TV shows because of licence restrictions, but the company said they are working on it. Also, you can’t download any content to watch later.
This new plan will be available in 12 countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Spain, the UK and the US. The price of this new plan costs USD6.99 (RM32.86) per month. Netflix said they will be introducing this plan to more countries in the future.
In the meantime, Lowyat.net has spotted something. The Basic with Ads plan is definitely coming here, just a matter of when, but Netflix Malaysia has quietly upgraded the Basic plan with the ability to watch in 720p HD resolution starting next month. Previously, subscribers of this plan can only watch content in 480p SD resolution.
The price of the Basic plan remains unchanged at RM35 and the same goes for the rest of the plan. However, Netflix Malaysia’s plan signup page still show 480p SD streaming for Basic plan at the time of writing.
So, the company has only updated the information in their Help Center, but not their front page.
