Netflix plans big India push, to pump in Rs 3,000 crore for expanding operations

The funds will be spent on creating more localised content.
Netflix plans big India push, to pump in Rs 3,000 crore for expanding operations
Netflix plans big India push, to pump in Rs 3,000 crore for expanding operations
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Netflix is the odd one out among the OTT players in India. It has a higher subscription of ₹500 a month but has still managed to build a decent base of membership. The company has lured the mobile phone users with a much cheaper subscription of ₹199 per month which also appears to be well received. Netflix now plans to go the whole hog and pump in another ₹3,000 crore before the end of 2020 to scale up the operations. The funds will be spent on creating more localised content.

This was disclosed by none other than founder and CEO of Netflix, Reed Hastings, at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit currently on in New Delhi. Interestingly, Hastings did not mention the exact number of subscribers the OTT service has in India, saying the global number is 160 million. The CEO said the firm has around 100 people working for them at their Mumbai office and another 1,000 engaged in creating content.

The service currently offers 24 feature films and 16 web series. More content is being outsourced as well. Two of Bollywood’s big names, Karan Johar and Shah Rukh Khan, are associated through their production houses, Dharmatic Entertainment and Red Chillies Entertainment respectively. Some of the new shows to be added to Netflix in India include ‘Ghost Stories’, a sequel to last year’s Lust Stories; Tribhanga, starring Kajol; Dibakar Banerjee’s Freedom; and Atul Sabharwal’s Class of ’83, produced by Red Chillies.

The Netflix CEO sees more investments being made by all the OTT players in the Indian market in the coming days, including the existing ones like Amazon Prime and Hotstar and the new entrants like Apple TV+ and Disney+ about to be launched soon.

Hastings pointed out a few programmes on their platform that have been very successful. He mentioned romantic comedy Little Things, crime drama Delhi Crime and animation series Mighty Little Bheem — all content coming out of India. He disclosed that the last named, Mighty Little Bheem, has been so popular that as many as 27 million homes outside India had watched the show.

Reed Hastings concurred with the general opinion that the OTT players need to have a self-regulatory mechanism in place and said Netflix believes in complying with the local laws in whichever country they operate in.

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