Why 93% of US titles are not available in Netflix Philippines

One of the biggest surprise we got after Netflix launched in the Philippines is the report that only 7% of the movie and TV library in Netflix US are available to Philippine subscribers (of course, there are also titles in Netflix PH that are not available in the US). For a starting price of Php370USD 6INR 535EUR 6CNY 46, that seems a bit unfair considering that the US equivalent fee is $7.99PHP 469INR 677EUR 8CNY 58.

So why the drastic reduction of title? Well, it’s also about keeping the cost low.

Netflix basically pays license fees for every single movie title and TV series that it adds in its libraries. That license fee is also paid on a per country or region basis which means in the Philippines, the library will have to start small at first. Fees for each title also varies depending on how old or new they are (reason why libraries in iFlix and Hooq are also mostly old ones).

So what does the 7% represent? I guess it’s the baseline cost which allows them to provide new subscribers will a decent set of titles without really spending much on the licensing fees at the start.

Later on, once the paying subscribers pick up, Netflix will eventually add more newer titles into the library. OR, they may swap around the existing library with another set.

At the moment, we’ll just have to settle with the existing ones available and hope that the list will soon grow as the subscribers grow.