Netflix and bill: You’re probably about to pay more to watch House of Cards
If you like settling down in front of House of Cards and other must-see shows from Netflix, you'll soon have to pay more for the privilege.
The movie and TV streaming service is raising its subscription prices and anyone who signed up in Netflix's early days faces a decision.
Early adopters currently pay £5.99 per month and get HD streaming and can watch on two different screens. Those features cost £7.49 for any new subscriber, so Netflix is bringing them into line, or "grandfathering" as it's known.
If you're paying this early price, that means you either pay the extra £1.50 a month and keep on binging in full HD, or you stick with the £5.99 and downgrade to the "basic package" of SD and just the one screen.
So, paying an additional £18 a year isn't a huge amount, particularly if binge-watching's your thing. For Netflix, though, that certainly adds up. In it's third quarter results last year, it noted that a €1 price rise in Europe happened "without negatively impacting growth". In its forecast for the first quarter, it said of the price rise, expected to happen in May: "given these members have been with us at least two years, we expect only slightly elevated churn"
And Netflix is well on its way to doubling its global user numbers, according to analysts.
"Record growth in 2015 shows Netflix to be well on its way to achieving its goal of 60-90 million US streaming customers, while the latest wave of international expansion suggests Netflix will at least double its global base to over 150 million streaming customers by 2020," said analysts at Enders. It notes that Netflix gained 1.8m subscribers in the UK alone last year.