Video streaming service Showmax last week launched a new data saving mode aimed at saving users extra megabytes of data.
The new data saving option, dubbed ‘Max Data Saving’, according to Showmax, “uses just 50MB per hour”.
That is the good news. The bad news? Showmax says that the new data saving mode is only available to iOS device users at the moment “and will be rolled out to Android app users soon”.
The launch of the Max Data Saving mode follows that of other similar modes launched previously to address the same same problem: let users stream content but at a lower cost by cutting down the data consumed in the process. Showmax has previously launched the Low and Data Savings modes, which use up to 300 and 100 megabytes of data, respectively, per hour.
For those that data savings aren’t much of a going concern, they can still stream content using the maximum quality setting available on the platform and enjoy the best possible picture quality but at a steep 1.4 gigabytes of data used up per hour.
The introduction of this new mode should go a long way in helping the streaming service one-up competitors, such as Netflix, in the race for subscribers on the continent it calls home. Netflix, just like Showmax, banks on users having access to downloadable content that they can download when on Wi-Fi and view on the go or when they are offline in order to save on data as well as by partnering with local network service operators and other infrastructure providers to cache content locally, making it easily accessible.
Last year, Netflix started trialling a free service in Kenya, a first anywhere in the world, and bringing the competition straight to Showmax’s doorstep by letting mobile users sign up and use the service without worrying about subscription fees, just data costs, with the hope of turning them into loyal subscribers in the long run.
