Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) is already the second most popular paid media in Australia, even before its official launch in the country, according to an Australian personal finance management software company, Pocketbook. The online streaming video company is set to roll-out in Australia in the next few months, according to Village Roadshow co-CEO, Graham Burke.
Netflix grows even after geo-blocking
Andrianes Pinantoan, marketing head of the Pocketbook, noted that the media service company has grabbed an impressive 27% of market share even before its launch, and active geo-blocking of the Australians from its online services. Around 21,000 Australian customers took part in the research over media spending. The research excluded iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Pandora, or Xbox purchases.
The research found out that Netflix, Inc.’s 27% of the Australian media subscription market share is three-times of 9.88% share, in the starting of 2013. The online media streaming company has tripled its share over the past year, and is continuing its success story by every passing month, which is evident from the Pocketbook’s graph. The graph does not take the amount of money spent, but only the number of users.
Netflix cannot be accessed in Australia on a legal basis; even then the users are sticking longer with the service compared to other platforms such as Quickflix. Australians availing the service of Netflix, continued for an average 110 days, compared to just 80 days for Foxtel in the same period.
Amazon Prime, also, gaining
Foxtel still holds the top-spot in Australia and Netflix penetration has hardly threatened the dominance of this top spot player in the continent. However, the traditional rentals and local players like Quickflix are starting to feel the heat. Pinantoan stated that Netflix is poaching on the customers, who cannot afford to pay the high rentals of Foxtel, which is around AU$100 per month. The executive said that those, who can afford the high charges of Foxtel are happy to stick with the service provider as they do not want to access Netflix through a VPN service due to geo-blocking in Australia.
Amazon Prime is expanding slowly since last September, according to Pocketbook’s research, even though the service took up geo-blocking for the Australians just like Netflix.
