Amazon-owned Lovefilm isn't about to go quietly into the good night, having reacted to the news of Netflix's launch with a little price cut.
An unlimited streaming package has been introduced for just £4.99 a month, with a 30-day free trial to boot - as one commenter points out, this deal has been around since December but Lovefilm has now confirmed that the launch price of £4.99 won't be going up.
This fiver gives you access to any amount of film and TV show streaming through Lovefilm, which, the company is keen to remind you, is available on PlayStation 3, Xbox and iPad, among other devices.
Convenient timing
Lovefilm has also taken this opportunity to reveal that it now has 2 million paying subscribers after a record number of people joined in the fourth quarter of 2011.
Although exact figures weren't given, the company says it added "hundreds of thousands of new customers" in October to December 2011 and describes it as "the fastest customer growth rate Lovefilm has experienced since 2009".
The company's staying schtum on the subject of today's Netflix launch, preferring not to comment on its competitors' activities. But reading between the lines, what the company is essentially saying is, "We've been streaming video in the UK since before you were even born, yeah Netflix?" (It hasn't though, if you want to be literal about these things - Netflix-the-company came first.)
Your comments (4) Click to add a new comment
mickyfitz13
January 9th
4. Thanks katesolomon, and yes jmace86 you have a good point there!
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katesolomon
January 9th
3. Mickyfitz13, we've updated the story based on your comment. Lovefilm has now confirmed to us that the £4.99 price won't be going up, hurrah.
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jmace86
January 9th
2. The big problem with both LoveFilm and NetFlix streaming is that they both have a rather poor selection when it comes to more recent releases. LoveFilm has the better selection, but almost none of the more recent movies are actually included in the streaming package and you have to pay extra to watch them.
I personally find the paying extra very confusing as I would have thought that they would prefer people to stream movies rather than rent discs as it costs them far less to keep a server maintained with the movies on it, than it does to keep a stocked warehouse full of discs, employing people to pack the discs and then paying for the postage of the discs!
I assume that it is behind-the-times movie studios living in the past and charging LoveFilm obscene amounts to actually stream their movies.
Until Studios stop charging NetFlix and LoveFilm so much to stream movies the streaming only services of both companies will continue to languish behind their disc-based offerings.
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mickyfitz13
January 9th
1. Please get your facts straight, they haven't just introduced this package, it's been around since early December, read here if you don't believe me! http://blog.lovefilm.com/uncategorized/new-unlimited-streaming-only-package-special-launch-price-4-99.html
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