Hulu cuts price of most popular plan by 25 percent

(Reuters) - Hulu is cutting the price of its most popular monthly plan by $2 to $5.99, making it one of the most affordable video streaming services in the United States as the company locks horns with Netflix and Amazon to lure more subscribers.

As part of changes announced on Wednesday, Hulu will also hike the price of its live TV option, already its highest priced plan, by $5 to $44.99 per month.

The changes by the streaming company, which is jointly owned by Walt Disney Co , Twenty-First Century Fox , Comcast and AT&T , come just days after Netflix Inc hiked prices of its most popular plan in the United States by 18 percent to $12.99.

Streaming services including Hulu, Netflix and Amazon's Prime Video are aggressively creating more original content and introducing attractive plans as they compete for subscribers.

Hulu announced this month that it finished 2018 with more than 25 million subscribers in the United States, while Netflix had 58.5 million subscribers in the country as of September. Globally, Netflix counted around 139 million users at the end of 2018.

The competition is only expected to intensify with AT&T and Disney planning to launch streaming services later this year. AT&T already runs the HBO Now streaming service, which charges $14.99 per month.

Hulu also said it would keep the price of its ad-free version at $11.99 per month.

Its pricing changes will take effect starting Feb. 26 for new subscribers, while existing users will see the changes after that date.

(Reporting by Vibhuti Sharma in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli and Sai Sachin Ravikumar)