StreamFest: Watch Netflix for free in December on TheseTwo Days
Streaming giant Netflix has announced to make its platform free for the December 5-6 weekend in India.
The OTT streaming firm revealed last month that it plans to provide free streaming for its users in India for a weekend. Content streaming giant Netflix acknowledged last month that in countries like India it has a lot of work to do.
Greg Peters, Chief Product Officer at Netflix, said during the business call, “We agree that giving everybody free access to Netflix in a country for a weekend might be a great choice to introduce a lot of new people to the stories, the service and how it functions.
“At Netflix, we want to bring the most amazing stories from across the world to all fans of entertainment in India. It’s why we’re hosting StreamFest: an entire weekend of free Netflix,” the company said in a statement.
How to access Netflix during Netflix StreamFest free of charge
• Visit netflix.com/StreamFest in order to join Netflix Stream Fest.
• Sign up for and start streaming with your name, email or telephone number.
• No credit, debit or payment card available.
• Whoever signs in during StreamFest receives a regular stream.
• The same login information cannot be used to stream by someone else.
The initiative, which is billed as StreamFest, will allow customers to access the whole catalog available on the platform for films, original shows, documentaries and weekend events. Users may sign up on the dedicated StreamFest page to start streaming the contents by registering their name, email or phone number and password.
Given the purpose of this program, it also restricts the number of people who would be able to access the service, even though Netflix refused to include any particular information.
Over recent years or so in India and other parts of the world, Netflix has been conducting several pricing experiments in order to increase its customer base and keep on offering premiums. This is in the sense of the rising demand for future growth on international markets such as India.
Earlier this year the company stopped offering a free 30-day trial in India and recently expanded it to the global markets. The global video streaming event began in July last year with a low-cost mobile marketing campaign for Rs 199 per month, which since then has been deployed to other markets in Asia such as Malaysia and the Philippines. It has also piloted for a limited duration a cheaper entry level program, weekly plans, reduced long-term subscription plans, and free content access for non-member states. In August, it supported all users worldwide with curated shows and movies free of cost.
Peters reported to analysts in April this year that “We worked very hard to improve the competitiveness and attractiveness of our services in India. A broader range of products and alliances and integrations in payments exist.”
However in comparison to rivals such as Disney+ Hotstar and Amazon Prime, Essel Group’s ZEE 5 and the Sony Pictures Network’s SonyLIV, Netflix is still among the most costly video streaming services in the world, offering all more than economical pricing packages. The streaming giant introduced support for the Hindi user interface at the product front in August and recently collaborated with Reliance Jio to incorporate its service into two set-top boxes. The initiative is also a first of its kind in the sense of its increased commitment to potential growth in international markets such as India.
Although the company does not have a national breakdown of users, the Industry estimates its Indian user base is between 2.5 million and 2.8 million.
Let us wait & watch how fruitful does this experiment serve for Netflix.