Netflix’s new ad-supported streaming service could reach around 40 million viewers globally by the third quarter of next year, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing a document Netflix shared with ad buyers.
Executives from both Netflix and Microsoft, which it’s working with on the new project, have met with ad buyers recently to try and ink deals. Netflix’s projection for advertisers comes with a dozen launch markets – Brazil, Mexico, Japan, the U.K., France, Germany, Korea, Spain, Italy, Australia and Canada.
The company’s metric for “projected unique viewers” for its ad-supported service is likely to be higher than the actual number of subscribers, because more than one person in a household will likely use Netflix.
This all follows Netflix’s troubles earlier in the year, when the company saw a falling subscriber count for the first time in almost a decade.
Netflix now says it could have 4.4 million unique viewers globally at the end of the year, with 1.1 million from the U.S. It’s betting that the ad-supported service, which will have a lower cost than its normal non-ad streaming, could add new users and make up for what it lost.
The losses came as Netflix tried to adjust to the environment after most pandemic rules were eased and people got access to vaccines, which cut into the mass boost in subscriptions and use that came with the 2020 quarantine period of the pandemic.
Read more: Netflix Considers Pricing Ad-Supported Tier Below $10
PYMNTS wrote that the ad-supported pay plan for Netflix could be priced at $7 to $9 per month, which would be around half of the $15.49 per month for the normal plan right now.
The plan would present around four minutes of commercials per hour, which is reportedly less than most competitors have in their ad plans.
Netflix’s goal with all of it is to try and find a balance between helping people who are looking at their wallets more closely with the inflation and economic conditions right now, and with maintaining a good experience for streaming without too much interruptions.
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