The Over The Top (OTT) platform market in India is booming and the competitors are gearing up for new strategies to keep their audience hooked. Netflix Inc., an American over the top media service provider, headquartered in Los Gatos, California, is among the top OTT platforms of all times. Ruling the overseas video streaming market, Netflix launched its platform in India in the year 2016. However, the competition only got intense with time. So, the streaming giant is now spending an enormous amount to the tune of $ 8 billion on content in India as a part of its expansion plans. According to a source, the company may enter lower priced segments to attract new subscribers in India. The Chief Executive Officer Reed Hastings said we are way behind YouTube, Hotstar. Those are really the leaders on internet. We are really pleased with our progress or tracking we are making since we launched two and a half years ago.
Netflix’s quarterly revenue and subscriber numbers fell short of expectations in Monday’s earnings call, resulting in the tumbling down of Netflix stock 10 %. Theodore Anthony Sarandos, the Chief Content Officer for Netflix said reaching out to 125 million members in 190 countries around the world, Netflix keeps its viewing data private, so all we are offered is a relative picture. If you compare [the Indian business] to our early business in Latin America, we are ahead of what we were when we started [there]. It’s growing faster.
Netflix started off by purchasing ownership rights to two seasons of the famous series House of Cards for $ 100 million. Today, it is making more television series than any network in history! In order to gear up for the Indian OTT market, Netflix launched its first ever original Indian series Sacred Games, this month. The regional content strategy of Netflix seemed to work tremendously, so far! Not only that but its Original Hindi movie Lust Stories is also doing really well! Netflix has seven more Indian shows in the pipeline, with original content which should also strengthen its global position.
Mr. Sarandos said we have been producing shows that are incredibly relevant in their home territories and the nice windfall is they get viewed all over the world.
Elated by their success Netflix, the Chief Product Officer Greg Peters said, we are really getting some nice momentum in our India growth. We are still a niche product and have got a long way to go to expand languages and many other aspects to able to cover to be a broad Indian product. But in terms of our beachhead, I am very pleased with what we have been doing.
Speaking about the growth of OTT in India, according to PwC, India will enter the top 10 largest global OTT video markets by 2022 with a whopping revenue of over Rs. 5,500 crores.
