Growth
Netflix started up in 1997 as a DVD delivery company and then moved to on demand streaming media service, by the year 2007 Netflix got to announce their billionth DVD delivery. By the time they were streaming Netflix were building up a huge customer base in 2013 it was reported that Netflix had 40.4 million users worldwide and late in the fourth quarter of 2014 it was reported that they had amassed 33.1 million U.S. subscribers.Variety
Netflix have seized a huge market by making their service available across a huge amount of media. The PS3,PS4, Xbox, Smart TVs and smart phones are just a small number of devices of which Netflix library can be displayed on. They are also branching out in new countries and building new library's for these countries the Irish and English market would be one such example of this.
Netflix unlike other media providers try to learn from their customers and allow you to rate your shows and they link you to other shows in accordance with your taste.
Netflix have also secured huge deals with TV giants like AMC, showtime and FX. And with new shows being made for Netflix itself with House Of Cards and getting prime time of the Breaking Bad spin off "Better Call Saul" the possibilities are endless.
The Death Of Satellite and Cable?
Once people have been hooked into Netflix they start to lose faith in regular TV, this is not every person mind you, but there is a huge amount of people in america and even some in Ireland who are canceling their subscriptions to their providers in favour of Netflix. A graph here, done by Experian Marketing
Service, taken from the huffington post, shows the rise of people who have cut their cable cords in america in favor of Netflix. Experian claim that users of high speed internet have stop subscribed/or never subscribed to cable companies have risen to 44% in 3 years. If this decline in cable in america continues it could lead to a future where most young adults don't pay for cable anymore. It can however be moderated by limiting your download limit, which most cable companies have control over in america as well.
In Ireland and the UK Netflix main competitor is Sky TV and in 2012, Netflix were running at a loss to battle them
"Our international losses are nearly $100m a quarter. We are investing heavily in acquiring customers but that’s what you need to do if you want to take on Sky. Sky is a powerful, formidable competitor.”
Closing
In closing it I would be wise for Sky to fear Netflix, true sky have many channels, but Sky commands a price of €28 a month and that's before you make it HD then its another €15 a month and then the movies can be free for a month or so but in the end it adds on another €28 a month euro. So €71 euro later you can have what you could possible have on Netflix for €6.99, Netflix provides shows in super HD 1080 pixels (providing your TV can support it) for no addition cost.Sky's main pull is the sports package which netflix can (currently) offer, but if your luck enough to live close enough to a pub with live games televised (like yours truly) maybe you don't need it. I am one such person who has canceled his Sky subscription in favour of Netflix and I have never looked back.
Good overview and pretty closely describes my own journey as I cancelled Sky one year ago after joining Netflix. As soon as Netflix will start streaming live t.v. (sport / concerts / news) we could see a real paradigm shift in how we watch t.v.
ReplyDelete