Netflix invests in original and licensed content in Asia-Pacific, considers India a major market

Netflix is investing millions of dollars for original and licensed content in Asia-Pacific, as greatest share of its third-quarter earnings came from this very region. The OTT giant has also pushed mobile-only plans in markets like India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand with affordable subscription plans – below $5 a month.

Tony Zameczkowski, vice president for business development in APAC at Netflix, in October had said the platform is very much focused on localization as it launched in the region. He said it included adding subtitles and dubbing in regional languages like Hindi, Malay, Korean, Japanese, Thai and Bahasa Indonesia; the company also made the app interface available in local languages. Zameczkowski pointed out that in the past four years, the platform recognized that the APAC region is primarily mobile first, which is a big difference from any other part of the world. He said Netflix is very bullish about the kind of opportunity Asia presents. “Markets like Japan, South Korea, India, Indonesia are definitely markets where we see significant potential and we will continue to invest in those markets,” Zameczkowski explained.

India Market

In the month of September Netflix India partnered with Reliance Jio to offer a free mobile-only subscription to post-paid subscribers. The subscribers are offered an option to upgrade to traditional plans. Zameczkowski told CNBC that users can pay Rs 199 a month to watch Netflix uninterrupted in standard definition on a smartphone or tablet at any one time. He said the mobile plan, which was introduced in 2019, was an addition to three other plans that already existed – it ranged from Rs 499 to Rs 799 a month. The platform considers India as a huge market because of high smartphone penetration and cheaper internet connection plans. Moreover, EY has also observed that India is only second to China. The country has the second highest number of internet users, has about 570 million internet subscribers which is growing at a rate of 13 per cent annually.

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According to a new report by Media Partners Asia (MPA), a research and analysis firm, the OTT giant will end the year to December 2020 with $2.4 billion of revenue from APAC region. MPA expects Netflix to close the year with a bang – paying base of 4.6 million subscribers in India. It also estimates the platform to generate $368 million of revenue in Southeast Asia in the full 2020 year.