On September 20 Netflix announced the launch of a free plan in Kenya. It is the first time the streaming platform has offered a completely free plan anywhere in the world. “We hope that many of the people who try our free plan love Netflix so much that over time they upgrade to a full, paid subscription,” explained Netflix in a media release.

It will be possible for subscribers of the free plan to enjoy about a quarter of Netflix catalog, which includes entire seasons of some series and several originals. For the time being, the plan is accessible only on Android mobile devices. New users can sign up without entering any payment information.

The initiative is in line with Netflix’s strategy, which consists in launching new proposals with a view to wooing audiences. The offering of free content by Netflix is not an unprecedented experiment. On several occasions the company has offered free trial periods, which were discontinued on different dates varying from territory to territory, it has made some specific content available on YouTube for brief periods and some of its original documentaries are currently freely available on YouTube. Similarly, in September 2020 it launched a limited-term parallel portal enabling users to view the first episode of each of ten series.