Goodness gracious, Australia. This didn’t take long at all.
Survey data released today shows local Netflix subscriber numbers tipped over a million in the final months of last year, giving the streaming service a purported reach of over 2.7 million Australians. That’s a hellavalot of eyeballs trained on screens, considering the company’s emergence Down Under in April.
The numbers get bigger, too. In a statement, Netflix said that every single day, Aussies contribute to a global binge of more than 175 million hours of content.
The service’s initial acceptance has one drawback: after the initial rush, future subscriber hauls may not look so flash.
The Australian chalks it up to “a growing sense that Australian consumers are beginning to realise the Australian version of Netflix is inferior to the US version,” a concern addressed by the company taking action against the sneaky use of VPNs, on top of local competitors like Presto and Stan.
Tim Martin of Roy Morgan Research also said “it could take a while longer for the idea of subscription video to gain a foothold among older tech explorers, technology traditionalists and technophobes,” and it’d be a while before it’s considered “truly mainstream.”
Fair call. There’s a bit of telly to work through while they catch up, though.
