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CALIFORNIA: Netflix , the world’s largest online video streaming company, said telecom operators around the world should take a cue from India’s Reliance Jio Infocomm to help make the internet more accessible at lower prices.“Reliance Jio has been a transformational network in India and has brought down data cost massively. There are other people around the world having that kind of impact and can get people to use internet more. We hope someone would do a Reliance Jio in every other country,” said Netflix CEO Reed Hastings Reliance Jio, which started services in September 2016, has helped to spur data consumption in the country with its 4G-only network.Los Gatos, California-based Netflix said India can contribute content to its global audience and will increasingly take its original series to international markets. Netflix has announced seven local series, beginning with Sacred Games, featuring Bollywood A-lister Saif Ali Khan and an entirely Indian production team. Three original Indian series, Leila, Ghoul and Crocodile, were announced last week. India trails the US, the UK and Japan in terms of original local shows commissioned.Video streaming services including Netflix, Amazon and Hotstar are competing against 30 Indian rivals, most of which provide popular sports and local-language general entertainment programming for free. Netflix said it is positioned more as a DVD or movie theatre in India.“India is very, very relevant to us with thousands of years of storytelling and incredible film traditions,” said Hastings, adding that the country alone has the potential of over 100 million members. “In India, content world has been held back and is only ad-supported television. And what’s great about Netflix is [there is] no advertising. India is an incredible opportunity because India’s cable infrastructure has been so fixed on the ad-based model that we can offer a complement to that.”Netflix, which posted $11.7 billion in revenue in 2017, has about 120 million subscribers globally and half of them are outside its home market. While it entered India in 2016, Amazon launched a year later with a larger customer base for its video service, which is bundled with its Prime shopping members hip. During its recent quarterly earnings, Amazon said more members joined its Prime programme in the first year than they had seen in any other country.That’s because Amazon has a significantly higher proportion of local content aimed squarely at the mass market — from cricket to sitcoms to musical reality shows and stand-up comedy specials. Netflix, however, has been more focussed on smaller consumer audiences, mostly English-speaking people in the cities. Pricing is a factor — Netflix subscriptions start at Rs 500 a month compared with Rs 999 a year for Amazon. Yet, Netflix remains unperturbed.“Our core strategy is to tune everyone out, try to stay focused. If we produce great series and movies, customers will love us. If we get distracted and try to copy other people like ‘do our own prime service,’ we will never succeed with that. Their strategy is to win by being broad with a little bit of everything,” added Hastings.(The writer was in Los Gatos at the invitation of Netflix.)