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Netflix's Struggles in India's Streaming Market

Netflix has struggled to gain subscribers in India compared to other streaming services like Hotstar, which holds about 70% of India's on-demand streaming market. Hotstar has found an edge through lower pricing at around $3 per month, as well as streaming rights to popular cricket matches. Netflix is working to expand in India by adding more pricing options, local language content, and building its subscriber base over time, but it currently only has between 500,000 to 1 million paid subscribers in the country.

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Nakshtra Das
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326 views4 pages

Netflix's Struggles in India's Streaming Market

Netflix has struggled to gain subscribers in India compared to other streaming services like Hotstar, which holds about 70% of India's on-demand streaming market. Hotstar has found an edge through lower pricing at around $3 per month, as well as streaming rights to popular cricket matches. Netflix is working to expand in India by adding more pricing options, local language content, and building its subscriber base over time, but it currently only has between 500,000 to 1 million paid subscribers in the country.

Uploaded by

Nakshtra Das
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
  • Streaming Market Overview
  • Competitive Landscape and Market Share
  • Pricing Strategy and Market Positioning
  • Executive Insights and Market Expansion Strategy

Netflix has

become a
staple on
American
households, so
it might be
hard to
believe that
the majority of
its 137 million
subscribers are international. The streaming giant has expanded to over a
hundred and ninety countries but one country where Netflix has had difficulty
breaking through is India. Both Netflix and Amazon Prime video launched in
India in 2016.

Thanks in
part to the drastic drop in mobile data prices streaming services; which were
once considered a luxury suddenly became increasingly more appealing to
Indians. India is now the second largest internet market in the world following
China. More than 35 different streaming services have launched or expanded
their businesses in India in the last three-and-a-half years. One company that
streams cricket and Indian movies and shows called hot star is leading the race.
Research firm Jana estimates hot star holds about 70% of the on-demand local
streaming services market. Even

Amazon
Prime video is bigger than Netflix in India and India's online video market
valued at over 700 million dollars is expected to grow to 2.4 billion dollars in
value by 2023. But according to analysts Netflix is not grabbing a huge piece of
that pie.
Mark Mahaney the managing director of RBC Capital Market said “we think
that Netflix likely has somewhere between half a million and a million paid
streaming subs in India right now”. Pricing might be one reason hot star has
had an edge on Netflix. Hot star offers its premium service for about three
dollars a month in India and about 80% of its catalogue is free to begin with.

Amazon Prime costs about $1.90 a month including access to prime music.
Compare that to the cheapest plan that Netflix offers which is a little over $7 a
month hotstar also offers streaming rights to the majority of cricket
tournaments in India- the country's most popular sport. Earlier this year 10.3
million viewers tuned into hotstar to watch the finale of the Indian Premier
League tournament. Facebook even offered to pay more than 600 million
dollars for the IPL’s digital rights but lost out to star India which owns hot star.
it's worth noting that Netflix has purposefully stayed away from streaming
live sports in the United States- it's a strategy that's worked well so far
domestically but it remains to be seen if it will work in India. Then there's the
hunger for local content; here again hotstar has an advantage because it's
been able to provide shows in regional languages which it borrows from
channels operated by star India its parent company but Netflix has taken note
of the demand.
Reed Hasting the CEO of Netflix says “We will go from expanding beyond
English into Hindi and then into many more languages, more pricing options,
more bundling, all of those things are possible. So we'll take it a million at a
time and figure out how to expand the market as we grow”.
Despite India's challenges, part of the reason investors have given Netflix its
God evaluation is precisely because it has room to expand.
Sylvia Jablonski from Direxion “it's been an awesome growth story and it will
continue to be an awesome global growth story as they expand into Asia India
and some of the international markets”.
In an interview with CNBC, Michael Morris from Guggenheim Securities said
“so our valuation right now is $420 a share that's progressed upward over
time and we think that given that global runway it's likely to continue to go
in that direction”.
It'll take time for Netflix to build up his presence as we have generally seen
historically it take about three years for Netflix to achieve 10% household
broadband penetration.

Netflix has become a staple on American households, so it might be hard to believe that the majority of its 137 mi
streams cricket and Indian movies and shows called hot star is leading the race. Research firm Jana estimates hot star holds
Mark Mahaney the managing director of RBC Capital Market said “we think that Netflix likely has somewhere between half a
million viewers tuned into hotstar to watch the finale of the Indian Premier League tournament. Facebook even offered to pay

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