Netflix’s Sajid Sarandos says India will do great in India

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Netflix’s Sajid Sarandos says India will do great in India

We have to get the payment methods and the pricing right. India is a huge prize because it's in an enormous number of entertainment loving people and you just have to have the product that they love and it's in a product that you can do business with them together. So, we're doing the creative part and we're getting the pricing better and there's always lots of promise to continue to grow in India, Mr. Sarandos said on his earnings call.

Netflix slashed prices in India in December 2021 by 20-60 per cent, amid tough competition from other streaming platforms that offered significantly lower prices. These reductions combined with an improved slate helped grow engagement in India by nearly 30 percent year on year, while F X neutral revenue growth in 2022 accelerated to 24 percent versus 19 percent in 2021 Learning from this success, we reduced prices in an additional 116 countries in Q 1, thestreamer informed its shareholders in a letter with the results announcement.

In July 2019, Netflix, positioned as a premium streaming platform in India, launched its cheapest plan for India at Rs 199 per month. In December, it slashed the price of this plan to Rs 149.

Sarandos said in his first earnings call that India is a very specific market where the viewers like local content, but a lot of Indian content is also traveling across the globe. He was talking about films such as the Oscar winner RRR and Alia Bhatt-starrer Gangubai Kathiawadi.

We're still investing against it and I think that we will ultimately do great in India, he said.

We're not saying every market is going to play out like that, but that's what it would look like in success, he said, adding that these countries are not material to their business anytime in the near term and represent less than five percent of our revenue.