Tag Archives: Netflix

Europe, In focus, Misc, News

EU aims to remove geoblocking of online content

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Soon, when traveling in the European Union, the Europeans will be able to fully enjoy their subscriptions to websites offering movies, sport events, e-books, games or music. This will be possible thanks to the new rules package modernizing the copyright law of the EU, presented by the Commission in framework of digital single market.

Thanks to the new law when traveling in the EU, consumers will be able to use purchased online services in terms of content in the same way as they do in their home country. For example, when a resident of France buys subscription to series and movies at Canal +, he will be able to enjoy movies and series available in France while on holiday in Croatia or business trip to Denmark. Providers of online services in terms of content, such as Netflix, Spotify or MyTF1 will check in which country the subscriber lives using the details provided for payment, his contract for Internet supply or IP address.

The new rules will apply to all paid services in the field of online content. Also providers offering free content (such as public broadcasters or radio) will be able to offer its users the opportunity to move the content.

The agreed law must now be endorsed by the EU Council and the European Parliament. If these rules are adopted, they will be applied in all EU Member States since the beginning of 2018 because the regulation gives service providers and right holders nine months to prepare for application of the new law.

The next step will be to open up the digital market, enabling for instance a user living in Italy to subscribe to any service available in any EU country. Yet, this improvement is encountering strong opposition from the TV and movie industry which have long enjoyed a divided digital market in Europe where it has been allowed to negotiate rights on a country-by-country basis.

Africa, Ecommerce, France, Funding & Acquisitions, In focus, Misc, News, Startups, Video

New video subscription services introduced to Africa

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Usually, Africa absorbs all the innovations with at least a few years delay and most of the local startups is a copy or a modified form of that, which is already known to us in Europe, Asia, USA, and the Middle East.

Similarly, it is with startup Afrostream. This portal’s business model is SVOD – subscription video on demand. Afrostream gives access to video resources (films, comedies, documentaries, TV series) to people from all over the world, who are fascinated by the culture of Africa. On the African continent there are over one billion people, out of which 300 million have access to the Internet. This is a huge market which is ready for this type of solution, that is a clone of Netfilx – the largest Internet SVOD service in the world. In October 2015, Afrostream acquired an undisclosed amount of money from Orange. Due to the lack of adequate resources in Africa, the project was developed in France. It is based in Paris. The startup is focused primarily on the African market, whose potential is estimated at 10 million of regular customers per month. This is 3% of Internet users. For € 6.99 per month, Afrostream offers access to all its resources. In contrast, Netflix’s lowest subscription fee is 7.99 €.

In contrast to Amazon Prime Video and Netflix, which offers you hundreds of thousands of videos, Afrostream puts quality over quantity (or at least their PR states so). The American e-commerce giant, Amazon, has launched Prime Video in 51 African countries, including Nigeria, South Africa and South Sudan. It offers access to digital movies and TV shows with a monthly membership. It has introductory price €2.99 for the first six months, starting with a free 7-day trial. Viewers can watch videos anytime, anywhere thanks to the Prime Video app for Android/iOS, Fire Tablets, LG /Samsung Smart TVs or online at the website. It is also possible to download all videos and watch them offline at no extra payment.  Prime Video is available in: Algeria, Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Cote D’Ivoire, Djibouti, Egypt and Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Ecommerce, France, Germany, Misc, News, Poland, Video

Netflix aims to have 100 million users outside the United States. It may enter to Poland in 2015.

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In 2020 Netflix wants to have 104 million users in markets outside the United States. In Poland, the service may be launched in the first quarter of 2015.

After 7 years from the start in a particular country, Netflix will be present there in every third home – such an ambitious plan has been announced at the conference CTAM EuroSummit by Reed Hastings, chief of the service. Hastings was referring to markets outside the United States, where Netflix has been launched. On the basis of these predictions, it can be calculated that in 2020 the service will have about 104 million users living outside the United States. According to these estimates, in six years the highest number of users will be in Brazil (24.4 million), Germany (11.3 million, the service there was launched only in September), Mexico (over 10 million), the UK (9.5 million) and in France (8.3 million).

Currently, the largest number of the service users, a population of 36 million, lives in the United States. However, Netflix is still looking for new markets – in addition to those of Germany and France, it has been launched in Luxembourg, Belgium, Austria and Switzerland.

In some countries the viewers are disappointed because they are unable to find a few of their favorite TV series (for each of the markets Netflix resources are slightly different due to local agreements on emission rights and copyrights).

According to unofficial information, Netfix may enter to Poland already be in the first quarter of 2015. Polish broadcasters and TV operators are worried that Netflix can dominate Polish VoD industry and lead to significant reshuffle in the market.

When Netflix started in 1998 as a DVD rental service ordered by e-mail, it was hard to imagine that in the future it could beat market video services giants, like HBO. Also significant is the fact that the success as a video streaming service, Netflix achieved in just seven years, from the time when it began to deal with this activity in 2007.