![]() Netflix’s problems started when executives began debating how much to charge when launching in the country in January 2016. “Netflix underestimated the immense complexity and challenges India brings,” says Vivek Couto, head of Media Partners Asia. Netflix’s struggles are even more notable when contrasted with rivals Walt Disney and, whose Indian services draw millions more viewers. The only nation with more people, China, has blocked every major streaming service. There’s no bigger prize than India, the second-most populous country in the world. To keep growing, Netflix will have to find customers in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Slowing subscriber growth has investors worried, and the company’s share price has fallen almost 40 per cent so far this year, wiping out more than $US100 billion ($133 billion) in value. In a call with investors in January, Hastings expressed frustration with the lack of progress in India, alarming employees who aren’t used to their boss being so forthcoming about Netflix’s failings. Many of its other shows have been cancelled after just one season. Netflix describes the second season of Sacred Games as a success, but hasn’t announced a third season. Several months before Sacred Games was released, chief executive Reed Hastings told a group of Indian business leaders that Netflix would sign up 100 million customers in the country.Īlmost four years later, it has only 5.5 million subscribers in India, research firm Media Partners Asia says. The country has a robust local film industry, a growing middle class, and rapidly expanding access to the internet. Then, to reach progressively larger audiences, the company hires a local team to commission projects from the country’s biggest producers, offering them creative freedom they wouldn’t get elsewhere.Ĭertain things about India were working in Netflix’s favour. Netflix’s formula for international expansion, which has worked everywhere from Canada to Japan, starts by targeting wealthy, young consumers in large cities who’ll pay to watch Stranger Things or Narcos. The success seemed to indicate that the company’s plan for India was coming together. Netflix promotes the popular series “Sacred Games” in Mumbai. The New York Times named Sacred Games one of the best foreign-made shows of the last decade, and Netflix described it at the time as its most-watched, locally produced show in the country. The drama stood out in a country best known for romantic musicals, which was the point. Based on a sprawling novel by Indian-American author Vikram Chandra, 2018’s Sacred Games was a Hindi-language TV show exploring Mumbai’s criminal underworld and one police officer’s efforts to save the city. Two-and-a-half years after it launched in India, Netflix had its first big hit.
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