South Africans love to Netflix and chill

Johannesburg - America’s online paid-for streaming service Netflix, which launched in 2007, might just be the best thing to happen to movies and television in a decade. The service offers a vast amount of entertaining content in over 30 countries and is currently reaching subscribers through 1 700 types of devices.

In South Africa, Netflix says it’s happy with its growth and has tripled the content available to local subscribers since its launch in 2016. With a global reach of 117 million subscribers, following 2016’s global launch in 130 countries, for the first time last year Netflix’s international subscribers surpassed their US member base.

While they say they don’t have the number of app downloads in South Africa, Netflix told #Trending that 10-foot user interfaces comprise 55% of total viewing hours (10-foot devices include anything that plugs into a TV – a game console, set-top box, streaming stick, smart TV, Blu Ray Player, MVPD STB – anything that uses HDMI or casts to a TV).

“Following this, mobile [phone] is also a preferred device and we are working hard to improve the mobile viewing experience. For example, consumers can download content to be available offline, so that you can watch anywhere and at any time,” says Netflix.

As a nation, we fully embraced the age of Netflix on October 15 2017, which was the most popular streaming day locally. Why? They can’t say. Another odd South African Netflix stat is that one person watched Radio Rebel 191 times in 2017!

According to Netflix’s chief content officer, Terry Sarandos: “Our viewing data show that the majority of streamers would actually prefer to have a whole season of a show available to watch at their own pace.”

What South Africans watched for more than two hours per day on Netflix

1. Ingobernable

2. Greenleaf

3. American Vandal

4. Suburra: Blood on Rome

5. Anne with an E

6. The Keepers

7. The OA

8. The Confession Tapes

9. Cable Girls

10. Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later

Top 10 ‘first binges’ globally:

1. Breaking Bad

2. Orange is the New Black

3. The Walking Dead

4. Stranger Things

5. Narcos

6. House of Cards

7. Prison Break

8. 13 Reasons Why

9. Grey’s Anatomy

10. American Horror Story