vodafone Hutchison Australia will give all existing customers on its higher-priced Red plans a three-month subscription to streaming video service Stan as part of its response to Singtel-Optus' partnering with Netflix, and Telstra offering Foxtel's Presto service.
Stan uses the internet to stream TV shows and movies to its customers and is a 50-50 joint venture between Fairfax Media and Nine Entertainment Co. It competes against US giant Netflix, Foxtel's Presto service and local player Quickflix.
But where Telstra and Optus are restricting free subscriptions to new or recontracting customers, Fairfax Media can reveal that Vodafone Australia will be giving three-month subscriptions to Stan to existing Red plan customers as all three telcos battle to use content services as a way to win more market share.
Vodafone Australia PostPay general manager Steve Smyth would not state how many customers that actually represented, citing commercial confidentiality. However, he said it was the telco's best-selling plan.
New customers signing up for $70 or $80 a month plans will be given a choice of picking a six-month subscription to Stan, taking a 12-month subscription to music streaming service Spotify or getting a 12-month subscription to Fairfax Media publications such as the Sydney Morning Herald or The Age.
For new users paying $100 a month, the free Stan service will last for a full year. But on all plans, the downloads of music and videos will count towards the monthly allowance – a fact Mr Smyth believes could lead customers to watch most of their content at home. Watch show on bus to work
"Typically the 'use' case here is actually TV shows," he said. "So on the bus on the way to work you may be watching about 30 minutes.
"But people typically have unlimited or very high data allowances on their home Wi-Fi, so we're expecting about 70 to 90 per cent being on the home Wi-Fi." The launch of Netflix has been so popular that it has helped cause major download increasesand alleged network disruptions across Australia – events that did not occur when its rivals Stan and Presto launched earlier this year. Optus launched a deal to offer customers signing up for its higher-priced plans six months of free Netflix access in March while Telstra recently moved to increase its data allowances while offering six months of Presto.
Mr Smyth insisted Vodafone Australia had backed the right horse and said that even though Netflix is the latest streaming video service to launch locally, it has actually been used by many Australians for several years – a fact he claimed made it the strong incumbent.
"I'm really confident of Stan," he said. "There's no reason for it not to be the market leader in Australia [and] the market is still developing.
"Stan has a very, very strong content catalogue and while there has been a lot of media coverage saying there's not enough space for more than two media players … my perspective is [that] this is totally wrong."
He also said Vodafone Australia's offer to give new customers two months of free services was a major incentive because it helped them determine if they were using the right plans. But he defended its move to force users to pick between the content partners as giving them choice.
"We give the second month to really give Stan a workout and ... people might choose to upgrade to the $100 plan with 10 gigabyte or take it back to the 3GB on $70 while using it on a WiFi basis," he said.
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