Samsung becomes Netflix’s official mobile entertainment partner, gets exclusive content

Samsung has announced a deal with Netflix to become the streamer’s official mobile entertainment partner. 

The deal will see improved product integration and content made exclusively available on Samsung’s newly announced range or smartphones.

Speaking at Samsung’s launch event for the phones in San Francisco, Netflix chief marketing officer Jackie Lee-Joe said: “In the coming months, Samsung mobile users will have access to a whole host of new and exciting bonus content based on some of your favorite Netflix Originals, accessible through Samsung Daily and Samsung channels. The content will shine a light on our diverse mix of creators from all around the world, a selection of whom will be handed a Galaxy S20 to shoot this content themselves, so that they have the freedom to continue inventing new ways to tell stories their way.”

“The mission of this partnership is to make the Netflix viewing experience on Samsung mobile the absolute best it can be.”

The streamer said that content will be tied to Netflix originals such as Narcos and Elite, though it remains to be seen whether this will be scripted or behind-the-scenes footage.

In terms of the ‘better integration’ referred to by the company, Samsung said that content discovery will be made easier, with users able to search for shows through Samsung Daily, Finder and the Bixby voice assistant.

This announcement follows a smaller collaboration between Netflix and Samsung in October surrounding the release of Breaking Bad movie El Camino. The pair hosted a launch party for the film in New York City, and heavily promoted its release on Samsung TVs with a dedicated El Camino countdown clock channel on Samsung TV Plus.

Elsewhere at the Samsung launch event, the South Korean company announced a gaming partnership with Microsoft for a cloud-based game streaming service, likely to be based around the latter’s Project xCloud which is scheduled for a formal launch in 2020.