With just 5 days before Apple unveils its new video streaming platform, Netflix has confirmed that its own service won’t be part of it.
Speaking at a press conference in Los Angeles, Netflix Inc Chief Executive Officer Reed Hastings, described Apple as a “great company,” however added their Netflix services will not be integrated with the upcoming apples new streaming platform.
“We want to have people watch our content on our service,” he said at a press conference on Monday. “We’ve chosen not to integrate into their service.”
Apple plans to introduce the video-streaming service on Monday, March 25 its Apple Park campus in Cupertino, California, a move aimed at giving various video streaming lovers a wide variety of platforms to choose from besides Amazon and Netflix.
According to various sources Apple is said to have already formed partnership with cable providers like Showtime, CBS Corp, Viacom, HBO and Starz among many others. The company is also reportedly focusing on creating original content for tv shows and movies as well as digital news and magazines.
Apple will allow customers to sign up for subscriptions to third-party services like HBO right within the TV same way as Netflix.
In response to a question about how Netflix will compete with Apple and Amazon going forward, Reed Hastings said the company will do so “with difficulty,”
“You do your best job when you have great competitors,” he said, before admitting that the increased competition has led to higher prices when sourcing content. “It is definitely getting more expensive to source content,” he said.
He added that his company had been competing with Amazon in streaming ever since both companies first launched online video services some 15 years ago and that stiff competition was necessary for the growth of the industry.
“These are amazing, large, well-funded companies with very significant efforts,” Hastings said. “They are going to do some great shows. I’m going to be envious. They’re going to come up with some great ideas. We’re going to want to borrow those.” “We will make this a better industry if we have great competitors.”
