Bad news for people who subscribe to Netflix in South Africa

A Netflix subscription in South Africa now offers less value for money in late 2024 compared to other countries’ plans than in previous years, an analysis by MyBroadband shows.

However, it is still less per title than memberships in the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, and European countries.

In multiple comparisons over the past few years, we have found that the relationship between South Africa’s monthly Netflix subscription price and its library size ranked it among the top territories in terms of value for money.

Netflix’s content selection varies from one country to the next as it may acquire the rights to certain movies and TV shows in one region or country but not in another.

This strategy will be based on the different tastes and competing services vying for content rights in each location.

Most recently, in January 2024, we compared the local R159 price of Netflix Standard with that of 19 other countries across every populated continent.

In that instance, we found that South Africa had the 12th biggest library of the 20 countries and was the 5th most affordable in terms of price-per-title.

When we performed the same comparison in early November 2024, the country’s library was the 13th largest.

Even though the price-per-title in South Africa had decreased from 2.46 cents to 2.36 cents, the country slipped to 10th in this ranking.

One of the reasons for this decline is that the rand has strengthened against some of the currencies in the countries that ranked better in terms of price-per-title.

Countries that leapfrogged South Africa in the ranking included Nigeria, Kenya, and Zambia.

Nigeria had the second cheapest monthly price and price-per-title at R57 and 0.86 cents, respectively.

Its monthly price was lower in rand despite a price hike from 3,600 Naira to 5,500 Naira between the comparisons.

That made its price-per-title decline drastically from 3.62 cents to 0.86 cents.

The sizes of Kenya’s and Zambia’s Netflix libraries more than doubled from our previous comparison, which also substantially reduced their price-per-title.

Overall, Egypt had the most affordable monthly price of R43 and was the only country with a price per title lower than 1 cent.

Where Egypt’s monthly standard price of 120 Egyptian Pounds was about R74 in January 2024, it was just R43 at the time of publication.

However, it had previously also ranked above South Africa in terms of price-per-title.

South Africans not getting a raw deal

It should be noted that South Africa’s price-per-title of 2.36 cents was still below the average of 2.58 cents across the 20 countries.

It is better than in more developed markets like the US (4.31 cents), Australia (3.05 cents), and the UK (3.02 cents).

South Africans can also get a cheaper Basic subscription with no ads for R99 per month, which is not available in many of the more affluent markets, where Netflix has replaced it with an ad-supported Standard plan.

Closer to home, South Africans enjoy more price security than their neighbours, who all have to pay in US dollars for their subscriptions.

While the Standard plan’s $7.99 price in those countries currently works out slightly cheaper than in South Africa, it can quickly change with currency exchange fluctuations.

Many African countries also have notoriously volatile currencies, so the cost of a subscription for people living there can increase drastically at a moment’s notice.