《TAIPEI TIMES》 Taiwan excluded from lower Netflix subscription fees

/ Staff writer, with CNA and AP

Online video streaming service Netflix Inc on Friday confirmed that Taiwan has not been included in its latest price reduction for Asian markets.

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A company representative said that Netflix fees in Taiwan would not be reduced, unlike in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

The representative said Netflix is seeking to continuously improve its user experience, including by updating its fees.

They did not elaborate on how much the fees would be cut in other countries.

The streaming service’s most recent price adjustments were reported by the Wall Street Journal on Thursday.

The newspaper said Netflix has reduced fees in more than 30 countries in the past few weeks as part of efforts to attract more subscribers.

It said Netflix has reduced fees in the five Southeast Asian countries, as well as Bulgaria, Croatia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Iran, Jordan, Kenya, Libya, Slovakia and Yemen, by up to 50 percent.

The newspaper earlier reported that Netflix’s executives were in talks to raise the price of its services last month, making the reduction a surprise.

The Wall Street Journal said the price cuts were likely part of a marketing strategy to attract new subscribers, as streaming services are becoming the dominant form of entertainment globally.

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However, Netflix would not update its fees in its largest markets, including the US, where it has regularly increased its rates in the past four years as it seeks to offset the cost of producing hit series such as The Crown and Stranger Things.

Although Netflix has established itself as the largest video streaming service in the US, it has been vying for viewers with other deep-pocketed rivals such as Apple Inc, Amazon.com Inc and Walt Disney Co, while high inflation has prompted many people to tighten their budgets.

Those factors contributed to Netflix losing nearly 1.2 million subscribers during the first half of last year, prompting it to introduce an advertising-supported version.

That helped Netflix bounce back during the second half of last year, when it added 10 million subscribers.

In another attempt to gain more subscribers, the company has started to crack down on password-sharing, which it said has enabled about 100 million people worldwide to watch Netflix for free.

The company earlier this month clamped down on the practice in Latin America and several other countries, including Canada, New Zealand, Portugal and Spain.

新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES