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Netflix unveils first South-east Asia Mobile-only plan for Malaysia at RM17 a month
Mark Ryan Raj
Malay Mail24 October 2019
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Similar to the mobile plan launched in India, Malaysian Netflix members can now stream and watch on-the-go with the introduction of Netflix’s new Mobile plan. — Picture by Ahmad ZamzahuriMore
PETALING JAYA, Oct 24 — Streaming your favourite shows on Netflix has never been easier with the introduction of Netflix’s new Mobile plan.
Malaysia today became the first country in South-east Asia to offer the Mobile-only plan available for RM17 a month, which is significantly cheaper than the Basic plan that costs RM33 a month.
Netflix’s director of product innovation Ajay Arora said that Malaysian members of the online streaming service watch twice as much content on their phones than an average member, so it made perfect sense to create a plan for them.
“Our members in Malaysia love to watch shows on their smartphones and tablets, with the first-ever mobile plan in Southeast Asia, all of Netflix’s shows and movies will be even more accessible for Malaysians to stream and download.
“We launched a similar plan in India and saw great results from it, so it made sense to do the same here with so many smartphone users.”
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Netflix’s director of product innovation, Ajay Arora said that Malaysian members can now stream with ease on their mobiles. — Picture by Ahmad ZamzahuriMore
88 per cent of Malaysians own a smartphone, and seven out of 10 of that percentage use their phones as a means to stream online entertainment, which is why Netflix has catered the Mobile plan for members to have a seamless streaming experience.
The new Mobile plan will make all of Netflix’s shows only available via a smartphone or tablet and will include some new state of the art features to enhance a users mobile streaming experience.
Features include smart downloads, sharing capabilities to social media, adaptive streaming and an adaptive user interface.
The smart downloads feature will assist a user in binge-watching a series as it immediately downloads the next episode of a particular series that you are watching in the background and also deletes previously watched episodes to save memory space on your smartphone.
Sharing capabilities have also been introduced into the Netflix app as Ajay explained that it is now easier to post clips or trailers from a show onto social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
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The Netflix app has also been upgraded as it uses a new faster-loading interface which also has social media sharing capabilities. — Picture by Ahmad ZamzahuriMore
“You may be watching a show and feel like you have to tell your friends about it so that they can watch it too, and this feature allows you to do so,” said Arora.
Adaptive streaming is also another feature that will ease the burden on mobile users as it employs a mobile-optimised encoding system, which allows for better viewing quality and reduced data usage.
The system will allow users to have a great viewing experience from speeds as low as 250kbps as it detects and encodes each scene from a show, based on how much data is needed to stream it clearly and can stream for six and a half hours on just 1GB.
“Imagine you’re watching a scene with just two people in it, so the system will use less data to load that picture and scenes with explosions or whatnot will use more data to get a clearer image,” said Arora.
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The new adaptive streaming feature allows users to enjoy clear images and bufferless loading, whilst not using up too much mobile data. — Picture by Ahmad ZamzahuriMore
The adaptive user interface, on the other hand, is designed to cater to entry-level or low-cost smartphones as the app detects the capability of your phone which will help loading speeds and memory constraints.
Tests showed that the new user interface loads up to two times faster on entry-level phones and also displays high-resolution images so that users can spend more time watching quality content rather than waiting for it to load.
Netflix’s new Mobile plan is capped at standard definition and similar to the Basic plan, it can only be streamed at one out of five profiles at a time.
To sign up for the mobile plan you can download the Netflix app on your smartphone or tablet, or visit www.netflix.com
Existing Netflix members can also opt to switch to the mobile plan at https://www.netflix.com/ChangePlan
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