Netflix India has unveiled a record growth of 700 per cent for the Fiscal Year (FY) 2018-2019, owing to the increase in local content and marketing. (As per The Economic Times report)
There are 39 players in the Indian OTT space since 2012 when there were only nine. Despite being the biggest global video streaming platform, it wasn’t that popular in India when it arrived in India in January 2016, until few original content started grabbing eyeballs. Now, with the recent report, Netflix has surpassed almost all its contemporary streaming players including Amazon Prime Video and Hotstar.
The streaming powerhouse has reported revenues of Rs. 466.7 crore for FY19 with a net profit of Rs. 5.1 crore, according to its filing with the registrar of companies sourced from Veratech Intelligence. In FY18, Netflix India had a turnover of Rs. 58 crore with Rs. 20 lakh net profit, which reflected financials for seven months starting September last year after the actual transfer to local distribution entity from Singapore.
Veratech founder Mohit Yadav commented, “A combination of factors including original content for India, partnership with Airtel for better access to market and fixing payment issues helped Netflix. All this combined with new low cost-based variants for a price-sensitive Indian market is the reason behind Netflix’s phenomenal growth.”
In the past two years, Netflix has doubled on offering local content, low-cost mobile plans and partnerships with telecom operators that adds into its 700 per cent growth in the country. Though the streaming giant doesn’t share subscriber numbers of individual markets, estimates are that its Indian subscriber base is between 1-1.2 million as of March 2019. The number has increased post July this year when the company launched a mobile only plan at Rs. 199 per month.
