Even though we have only arrived on the third day of the week, it has certainly been a rather colourful week for Astro. Alongside a crippling satellite provider outage that had lasted for two days to a new Astro Ultra Box variant that will skip the satellite transmission altogether, there is a new rumour circulating which claims that the pay-TV operator has signed Netflix as its latest streaming partner.
According to a report by The Edge, the partnership between Astro and Netflix could be officially revealed as early as this week. Despite that, Netflix apparently would not appear immediately inside the Astro box as the integration process would only be completed months after the official announcement.
In general, that description mirrors the usage scenario for Astro customers that have received access to Disney+ Hotstar as the streaming service will only be integrated into Astro Ultra and Ulti connected boxes later this year. For now, Astro customers are only able to watch Disney+ Hotstar contents via its mobile apps or website.
If the rumour is true, Netflix would be the fourth major streaming service that Astro has signed to partner alongside with Disney+ Hotstar, iQIYI and HBO. There will be more to come though as the company is actually planning to partner with up to 15 streaming services within the next two years.
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On another hand, the report by The Edge didn’t touch on the impact of the partnership in regards to its current pricing of Astro’s packages. This is a very important point as we already saw how Astro increased the Movie Pack subscription price by RM 5 per month after the inclusion of Disney+ Hotstar.
Furthermore, customers have to pay for the price increase regardless of whether they activate their access to Disney+ Hotstar or otherwise. So, let’s see how the Astro and Netflix deal is going to be, provided that the rumour is actually accurate.
(Source: The Edge.)
