Netflix Needs To Partner with MTN andd Airtel To Increase Subscribers in Nigeria
Nigeria has about 101 million mobile internet users on the GSM networks in Africa's most populous country with the largest economy. But the high cost of data for viewing videos online is making the leading video streaming services to be out of reach for majority of the teeming population who prefer to subscribe to cable TV services.
There are an estimated 15 million subscribers of cable TV networks in Nigeria with 10 millon of them shared by Multichoice and StarTimes.
MultiChoice streams satellite TV to between 4.5 million and 6 million Nigerian subscribers from the database reports of the cable TV subscribers in the country.
In Nigeria, satellite TV reception was the choice for 11.8 million households in 2019, a 23% increase compared to 2017, and a further 4.7 million in Ghana, up by 19% from 2017.
The study also highlighted that High Definition (HD) TV sets are becoming increasingly popular, already present in approximately 50% of Ghanaian and Nigerian TV homes.
Paying less than N3, 000 to subscribe to Netflix is not expensive, but including the costs for internet data have discouraged majority of people in Nigeria.
The following analysis on data usage is useful.
"Data consumption is different from speed. If you have a fast connection, that doesn't necessarily mean you use a lot of data per month. However, services like video streaming adapt to the available speed, so having a fast connection often does increase your data usage (and video quality), even if your habits don't change.
Streaming video:
Video uploads and downloads:
If you download a movie rather than streaming it or if you upload one to YouTube or Vimeo, the data consumption is similar, and it's always based on the full quality of the movie. If you make a video on your phone, you probably aren't creating HD quality or running for streaming video. The data consumption will depend on the quality of the video you receive. If you have a slow connection, most providers will adjust the quality so you won't have to pause for buffering too often. High-definition video can run as high in bandwidth consumption as 8 megabits (1 megabyte) a second. That's 60 megabytes a minute, if your connection is fast enough to handle it. A two-hour movie, at that rate, will consume 7.2 gigabytes. That's an upper bound, and usually it will be less, but a feature movie is a lot of data no matter what.
Video uploads and downloads:
If you download a movie rather than streaming it, or if you upload one to YouTube or Vimeo, the data consumption is similar, and it's always based on the full quality of the movie. If you make a video on your phone, you probably aren't creating HD quality or running for hours. Still, if you upload a lot, it will add up hours. Still, if you upload a lot, it will add up."
Netflix has partnerships with Telkom and Vodacom in South Africa and these deals have increased the subscriptions to the video streaming service. A similar partnership with MTN and Airtel in Nigeria will attract the millions of the middle class subscribers of the GSM networks in the country so include subscription to Netflix in their monthly budget.
- By EKENYERENGOZI Michael Chima,
Publisher/Editor,
NOLLYWOOD MIRROR®Series
247 Nigeria (@247nigeria) / Twitter
https://mobile.twitter.com/247nigeria
https://www.amazon.com/author/ekenyerengozimichaelchima
