Netflix adds 10.09 million subscribers in Q2, forecasts weak growth in Q3

The streaming giant also said it has appointed Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos as co-chief executive officer.

Netflix Inc added more paid subscribers than expected in the second quarter as audiences bound to their homes due to the Covid-19 restrictions binge watched its shows in the absence of live events and movie theaters.

Netflix said on Thursday it added 10.09 million paid subscribers globally during the quarter ended June 30 compared with analysts' estimates of 8.07 million, according to research firm Refinitiv.

The streaming giant also said it has appointed Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos as co-chief executive officer.

The company forecast paid subscriber additions for the third quarter below estimates, in an early sign that the lockdown boost to streaming may be waning as stay-at-home orders ease, sending shares down 10 per cent.

The company said it expects to add 2.5 million paid subscribers globally in the third quarter. Analysts were expecting it to add 5.35 million subscribers, according to Refinitiv data.

The coronavirus-induced layoffs and furloughs across industries coupled with easing lockdown rules may dampen the boom in demand for streaming services as people prioritize stepping out of their homes.

Revenue for the company rose 24.9 per cent to $6.15 billion in the second quarter ended June 30, beating estimates of $6.08 billion, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

Netflix adds 15.8 mn customers during quarantine, warns boost is temporary

Total revenue rose to $5.77 billion from $4.52 billion. Analysts on average had expected $5.76 billion.

Netflix Inc on Tuesday reported a surge in new sign-ups as audiences stayed in their homes to help fight the novel coronavirus and binged on series such as "Tiger King," but the company predicted a weaker second half of the year if quarantine orders are lifted.

The world's largest streaming service gained 15.8 million paying customers in the first three months of the year, bringing its global total to 182.9 million at the end of March. That nearly doubled the average Wall Street expectation of nearly 8 million, according to FactSet.

The company warned, however, that it expected fewer new customers from July to December compared with a year earlier.

Many people who would have joined then are likely to have already signed up, executives said.

"We expect viewing to decline and membership growth to decelerate as home confinement ends," Netflix said in a letter to shareholders.

ALSO READ: Brent oil futures plunge again as growing glut feeds market panic

Shares of Netflix rose 1.2 per cent to $439 in after-hours trading.

The company is among the few businesses to benefit from government orders imposed in March to keep people in isolation amid the coronavirus threat. While the S&P 500 Index has fallen 19 per cent from its Feb. 19 record high, Netflix has gained 11 per cent during the same period. Netflix also issued a bullish forecast that it would add 7.5 million new customers for the current quarter, which ends in June, though the company said it was "mostly guesswork" given uncertainty over when stay-at-home orders might be lifted. Analysts surveyed by FactSet had expected 3.8 million.

For the just-ended quarter, Netflix's earnings per share fell short of analyst expectations. The company posted diluted earnings per share of $1.57, below the $1.65 consensus, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

Realme C3 review: Good performance overall, but camera disappoints

This smartphone could be a good option for those looking for a performer, but if you are looking for Instagram-worthy pictures, you might not be impressed.

Technology News : After launching several smartphones last year, Chinese smartphone brand Realme is continuing to bring more smartphones to the Indian market. After the Realme 5i, the company has brought the Realme C3, aimed at those who love to binge-watch movies and web series.

The Realme C3 comes with some notable software and hardware upgrades over the Realme C2, including MediaTek's Helio G70 Processor chipset and a 5,000-mAh battery.

In the first impression, we felt the smartphone was worthy of some praise but we couldn't just do that at its face value, so we used the phone for a few days and here is what we found:

Design and display

The phone's textured back panel is a deviation from the usual gradient design we see in most smartphones these days. Apart from that, the phone is lightweight, despite a 5, 000mAh battery.

The power and volume buttons are on the right and left sides, respectively. But they are very sleek, hence a bit difficult to locate. The phone has a tray for two Nano-SIMs and a microSD card. There are a Micro-USB port, a 3.5mm audio jack, and a loudspeaker at the conventional bottom position.

Despite 195g weight, the Realme C3 feels light. The phone is available in Frozen Blue and Blazing Red colour options.

When it comes to display, the smartphone has a 6.5-inch LCD screen with 1,600 x 720 pixel resolution, 20:9 aspect ratio, and 89.8 percent screen-to-body ratio. The screen has Gorilla Glass 3 protection.

The display may not impress much at first, but it seems fine when you get used to the phone. This smartphone is for those people who watch a lot of web series and shows on their phone. For that, it just fits fine. But you would have to adjust brightness when using it outdoors. Since it doesn't have a Widevine L1 certification, you will not be able to play HD videos on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, etc.

Overall, it looks like any other smartphone in its price range, but the back panel separates it from others.

Netflix price cuts heating up streaming war in India as data costs go up

Netflix Price Cuts Are Heating Up India's Streaming War.

BS : Netflix Inc and its rivals are facing a price war in India as a jump in the cost of watching video on mobile phones threatens to slow demand in what is shaping up as a key growth market globally for streaming.

The country’s three wireless carriers hiked data tariffs by as much as 41% earlier this month, leaving some customers in India, where most streaming is done on phones, with less to spend on entertainment services like Netflix, Apple Inc.’s TV+ service -- which debuted there last month -- and those of local competitors.

Cheap broadband, a well-established film culture and a vast English-speaking population have helped make India a lucrative streaming battleground, with Netflix targeting 100 million subscribers in the country, almost 25 times the customer base as of this year. But an increase in data costs, coupled with a wider slowdown in the economy, could make customers more sensitive to how much they pay for content, just as players like Apple and Amazon.com Inc.’s Prime try to dig a foothold in the market.

“This is a challenge that will affect growth, as the mobile data boom has been a big factor driving adoption in India,” said Utkarsh Sinha, managing director of Bexley Advisors, a boutique investment bank focused early-stage deals in tech and media. “The Indian user has largely used data like running water without thought.”

Netflix is already trying to get ahead of the move, slashing prices by as much as half for subscribers that commit to at least three months. Most of the country’s streaming services, including Apple TV+, Amazon Prime and Walt Disney Co.’s Hotstar have also offered discount deals this year and subscriptions at prices well below those in other markets. Apple’s new TV+ service, for example, sells for about $1.40 a month in India, compared with about $5 in the U.S. and Japan.

Spokespeople for Netflix, Amazon, Apple and Hotstar in India declined to comment.

“As all platforms become equally competitive on content, pricing will be a key lever to pull to draw in customers and encourage churn,” said Sinha. “Netflix has introduced an India-only price, and Amazon is already subsidizing its Prime offering through a package deal.”

The price pressures add to what is already a cutthroat streaming market, with some 30 operators hawking online video services in the country of 1.3 billion people. Viu, a smaller streaming player run by Hong Kong-based PCCW Ltd.’s media arm, recently decided to exit the market because it lacks the cash to challenge bigger rivals, India’s Economic Times reported Dec. 16, citing an executive it didn’t name at Viu.

After FB, Netflix, more US tech giants turn to India for new apps release

Besides organic growth, acquisitions are another strategy for these companies in India, especially since they are facing more scrutiny back home and in western Europe.

India is emerging as the testing and acquisition playground for global consumer technology companies, especially the so-called FAANGs, according to a veteran internet analyst.

RBC Capital Markets’ Mark Mahaney, who calls himself Wall Street’s “oldest internet analyst” after covering the sector for more than two decades, said India is now more popular than markets like China because it has the same growth dynamics but with fewer regulations.

As one of the largest economies and most populous countries in the world, India has turned into a testing ground for companies such as Facebook Inc., which has used it to beta-test a payments feature for WhatsApp. Netflix Inc. rolled out a mobile plan in India at 199 rupees ($2.80), much cheaper than what it charges for a basic plan elsewhere, and has created original content to capture more market share.

“India does have regulations but it doesn’t seem to be as protectionist as China,” said Mahaney. India has been considering a new law that would require personal data to be stored locally, which could impair the operations of the Internet giants but Mahaney remains confident they can still penetrate the market.

Besides organic growth, acquisitions are another strategy for these companies in India, especially since they are facing more scrutiny back home and in western Europe. “There’s an opportunity to build growth” in Asia, particularly in India, Mahaney said.

Amazon.com Inc. has already tried its hand at deals in the South Asian nation by attempting to acquire Indian e-commerce pioneer Flipkart Online Services Pvt., before it was snapped up by Walmart Inc. last year.

Facebook, Netflix, Amazon and Alphabet Inc. can all win big in India, said Mahaney, who has a buy rating on the stocks. “India is less than 5% of the Amazon’s total revenues but it has the potential” to get to that level within five years, Mahaney said.

Business Standard

JioFiber: Ambani bets on free TVs as he takes on Netflix, Amazon, telcos

Airtel may take the most direct competitive hit from JioFiber because, along with content bundles for its mobile services, it is one of the country's largest TV service providers.

Business Standard : Three years after elbowing into the Indian wireless phone market with free calls and data, billionaire Mukesh Ambani is back at it.

This time, Asia's richest man is handing out TVs to hook users on movies and entertainment shows via internet. The tycoon is wedging into a business teeming with players from rival mobile carriers to Netflix Inc and Amazon.com Inc.

Ambani's JioFiber broadband service, scheduled to start Thursday across India, comes with a high-definition television and set-top boxes at no charge for annual lifetime subscribers. The offer by Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd, the tycoon's wireless powerhouse, includes subscriptions to most premium streaming services with prices starting from Rs 700 (about $10) a month.

The fiber-TV salvo comes days after Jio formally swept into the No. 1 spot for wireless services after free calls and cheap data lured hundreds of millions of subscribers and left rivals Bharti Airtel Ltd and Vodafone Idea Ltd struggling under mounting debt. Airtel, backed by tycoon Sunil Mittal, and billionaire Kumar Mangalam Birla's Idea are also trying to lure users by offering access to TV and movie content.

Telecom carriers around the world are adding entertainment content to their offerings as a way to compete for users and add revenue, especially in markets where the number of mobile subscriptions has reached saturation. In India, video-on-demand growth itself is explosive, according to researcher Boston Consulting Group.

The market could leap to $5 billion by 2023 from $500 million last year, BCG estimates. The boom has set Bollywood production houses, carriers and streaming services racing to feed demand for TV shows and movies and compete for users. Paying subscribers will probably rise to as many as 50 million, while users of advertising-supported video-on-demand will reach 600 million, BCG predicts.

To gain the upper hand in the streaming business against well-funded competitors like Netflix, Amazon.com and Walt Disney Co's Hotstar, Jio will need to go beyond just offering cheaper access via bundled services, said Shailesh Kapoor, founder and chief executive officer at Mumbai-based consultancy Ormax Media Pvt.

Star Wars, Marvel & ESPN: How Disney plans to take on Netflix in streaming

Disney is matching Netflix's standard plan and marketing the service $3 below its rival's premium version, which lets subscribers and their family members watch on as many as four devices at once.

Business Standard : Walt Disney Co. is pricing a new bundle of streaming services at a surprisingly low $12.99 a month, challenging Netflix Inc. with a package that includes family programming, live sports and a deep library of television shows.

The entertainment giant announced the combined pricing for Disney+, ESPN+ and Hulu on a conference call Tuesday with investors. It will debut as part of the November launch of the Disney+ service and represents a near 30% discount to their individual prices.

Disney is matching Netflix’s standard plan and marketing the service $3 below its rival’s premium version, which lets subscribers and their family members watch on as many as four devices at once. But two of the Disney services, ESPN+ and Hulu, carry advertising, while Netflix is commercial-free.

The company’s crusade to become a streaming giant has been a costly one. Investments in new online services led to a $553 million loss in Disney’s direct-to-consumer division, part of generally disappointing results released on Tuesday. And that deficit is expected to rise to $900 million in the current quarter.

But Disney’s trove of films and TV shows from its Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars brands will make it a formidable competitor, said Ivan Feinseth, chief investment officer at New York’s Tigress Financial Partners LLC.

“Disney has powerful content,” he said in an interview with Bloomberg Television.

HBO Max

The aggressive pricing could also create headaches for HBO Max, a streaming service from AT&T Inc. that’s scheduled to launch next spring. That package also will offer family programming and original shows. The cost for that package hasn’t been announced yet. But HBO alone costs $14.99 a month, suggesting that it will be hard to compete with Disney’s price.

Disney is betting online services will counter the loss of conventional TV viewers for flagship channels like ESPN, ABC and the Disney Channel. Earlier this year, the company spent $71 billion acquiring the movie and TV assets of Fox to bolster its future offerings.

With Hulu + Live TV, the company also offers a package of 60-plus live television channels intended to compete with cable and satellite services for $44.99 a month.

Bharti Airtel replaces Vodafone Idea in second spot by mobile revenues

Focus on 4G subscriber growth balances rising cost for telecom firm.

Focus on data subscribers and weeding out low revenue customers have helped Bharti Airtel, while its peer Vodafone Idea could not implement the strategy.

However, network and content costs are on the rise for Bharti as it witnesses a steady rise in mobile data customers.

Further, Airtel’s reported mobile revenues for the April-June quarter (Q1) was Rs 10,866 crore. This makes it the number 2 player after Reliance Jio in terms of mobile services revenues, analysts claimed.

Vodafone Idea, which does not share the break-up of revenues, reported an overall revenue figure of Rs 11,269 crore for Q1.

A Mumbai-based analyst noted that Vodafone Idea draws over Rs 600 crore from enterprise customers as well as broadband (or fixed services). Adjusting for it, the mobile service revenues for Vodafone Idea would be Rs 10,669 crore, making it the third-largest telecom firm by mobile revenue after Jio’s figure of Rs 11,679 crore.

Merged Vodafone Idea does not share the break-up of revenues. However, according to analysts, the comparative fixed revenue value should be around Rs 600 crore. Vodafone Idea said it reports only consolidated revenues.

Bharti Airtel lost only 1.5 million subscribers in June quarter, against 14 million subscribers lost by Vodafone Idea. What worked for Airtel was that its data traffic growth was 13 per cent sequentially and its average data usage was even higher than Jio’s (a 4G-only player) at 11.9 gigabyte per month per user.

However, as its mobile 4G data customers increased by 63.3 per cent to 95.2 million in Q1, compared to 58.3 million in the corresponding quarter last year, the company’s content costs also grew.

“In 2018-19 (FY19), content costs (for Airtel) rose 30 per cent year on year (YoY), reflecting the impact of content deals with Zee5 and Netflix,” said G V Giri, analyst, IIFL.

Its passive infrastructure charges, too, rose 12 per cent. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (Ebitda) margin declined on account of network expansion.

Business Standard

Netflix to offer an affordable Rs 250 a month, mobile-only plan in India

Netflix currently offers three monthly plans in India, priced between Rs 500 and Rs 800.

Netflix Inc said on Wednesday it would roll out a lower-priced mobile-only plan in India, tapping into a price-sensitive market where data consumption on smartphones is surging.

The video streaming pioneer said in March that it was testing a Rs 250 ($3.63) monthly subscription for mobile devices in India, where data plans are among the cheapest in the world.

"We believe this plan ... will be an effective way to introduce a larger number of people in India to Netflix and to further expand our business in a market where Pay TV ARPU is low," the company said.

Netflix's new plan is aimed at battling cheaper offerings from rivals such as Amazon.com Inc's Prime Video and Hotstar, a video streaming platform owned by Walt Disney Co's India unit.

Netflix currently offers three monthly plans in India, priced between Rs 500 and Rs 800.

ALSO READ: Should Netflix be afraid of Apple?

In contrast, Hotstar, which also offers content from AT&T Inc's HBO and streams live sports, charges Rs 299 per month. Amazon bundles its video and music streaming services with its Prime membership.

Netflix's announcement was part of its quarterly results, in which it reported lower-than-expected subscriber additions.

India figures prominently in Netflix Chief Executive Officer Reed Hastings' global expansion plans. The company is investing heavily in creating blockbuster shows such as crime thriller "Sacred Games" and "Delhi Crime" with A-list Bollywood actors.

The second season of "Sacred Games" is set to release in August.

"We've been seeing nice steady increases in engagement with our Indian viewers that we think we can keep building on. Growth in that country is a marathon, so we're in it for the long haul," Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos said.

Sacred Games season 2 first look out: Kalki, Ranvir Shorey join the race

Saif Ali Khan, Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Pankaj Tripathi will continue to play the characters of Sartaj Singh, Ganesh Gaitonde and Guruji in the second season of Sacred Games.

Netflix has released the first look of the season 2 of Sacred Games, which is set to return with a new trail of betrayal, crime, passion and a thrilling chase through Mumbai's underbelly, later this year.
The 26 second video released on YouTube Sunday shows all the characters who will play the pivotal roles in the next season. Apart from Saif Ali Khan, Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Pankaj Tripathi, who will continue to play the characters of Sartaj Singh, Ganesh Gaitonde and Guruji, the teaser also introduces Kalki Koechlin and Ranvir Shorey. According to Netflix, fans will witness Koechlin as Batya and Shorey as Shahid Khan in the show.'

The second season picks up from Sartaj Singh (actor Saif Ali Khan) pursuing his relentless battle of saving the city and Ganesh Gaitonde (actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui) facing bigger challenges to retain his position as the legendary kingpin of Mumbai.

The intriguing Guruji (actor Pankaj Tripathi), introduced in season one as Gaitonde's 'third father', plays a pivotal role in unfolding a chain of events that shape the next season.

Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap will continue directing Ganesh Gaitonde's track, while director Neeraj Ghaywan will take over Sartaj Singh's plot.

Vikramaditya Motwane and Varun Grover will continue their roles of being the showrunner and the lead writer respectively.

The first season also starred Radhika Apte and Kubbra Sait.

Last December, "Mirzapur" actress Harshita Gaur had confirmed that she had bagged a pivotal role in "Sacred Games" season two.

Actor Jatin Sarna, who made a big impact with a small role as Nawazuddin's volatile hitman Bunty in "Sacred Games", will also be back in Season 2 of the Netflix series, although his character was killed in the first season.

"The second season goes into a flashback. My character Bunty is on a wheelchair. So I need to harness and control my natural energy level to play a subdued physically limited character," Jatin said.

Business Standard

Game of Thrones: Piracy 'better than Emmy' for HBO as it battles Netflix

The competition for the Iron Throne on the screen is paralleled - in the real world - by the epic struggle for supremacy in television production.

Eight years after the first season premiered, the long-awaited winter has finally come – Game of Thrones’ final season is here. The television series created by David Benioff and Daniel Brett Weiss from the books by George RR Martin has built a rich and complex multi-thread plot-knot of epic battles, of the living and the undead, of long owed-debts to be paid, and of the culmination of clan stratagems to win the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms.

But at the end of season seven in the autumn of 2017, it wasn’t the clan warfare that had us cliffhanging, but the thought of the army of undead white walkers and their zombie dragon bearing down on Westeros.

Many millions of fans are waiting breathlessly for the denouement – and it’s a legion of fans that has grown exponentially over the eight-year run. In the US, for example, the audience has grown from 2.5m viewers in the first season (2011) to an average of 10.3m during season seven, which peaked at more than 12m viewers during the season seven finale on August 27, 2017.

According to MUSO, a magazine which specialises in piracy, the first episode of season seven alone was pirated 91.74m times and the season accumulated more than a billion illegal downloads a week after it ended.

So many people viewing outside of the official channels doesn’t just suggest the incredibly large audience GoT can attract, it also demonstrates the growth in illegal downloading of television shows – 11% last year – despite the effort of the streaming technologies to kill off piracy.

Piracy has its rewards

But this hasn’t necessarily been a problem for HBO. In 2013, the boss of Time-Warner (which owns HBO), Jeff Bewkes, declared that piracy was: “Better than an Emmy” because more people watching the show inevitably led to more people deciding to pay for subscriptions. He said: We’ve been dealing with this for 20, 30 years – people sharing subs, running wires down the backs of apartment buildings. Our experience is that it leads to more paying subs. I think you’re right that Game of Thrones is the most pirated show in the world and that’s better than an Emmy.

Since then, GoT has repeatedly become the most pirated series of all time in every season. And with season seven this record was broken yet again.

Business Standard

Netflix adds10 new original films across various genres in India

With these additions, a total of 15 new original Indian films will be available to Netflix users around the world by the end of 2020.

Business Standard : Continuing its investment in Indian content, global streaming giant Netflix on Monday announced a slate of 10 new original films, across a range of genres and subjects.

With these additions, a total of 15 new original Indian films -- including previously announced titles "Music Teacher", "Cobalt Blue", "Chopsticks", "Upstarts" and "Bulbul" -- will be available to Netflix users around the world by the end of 2020.

"When Netflix launched in India, we changed the way Indian audiences enjoy their films," Srishti Behl Arya, Director - International Original Film, India, Netflix, said in a statement.

"Given our diversity, history and culture, India is home to powerful stories waiting to be told to audiences around the world. The depth of talent and vision of our creators is enabling us to create films our members will love. We want to be a home for India's finest filmmakers where their stories travel to more people than ever before," Arya added.

As part of the new slate, viewers can expect "Ghost Stories", which will reunite directors Karan Johar, Zoya Akhtar, Dibakar Banerjee and Anurag Kashyap after "Lust Stories" to tell spine-chilling tales. This will be produced by Ronnie Screwvala's RSVP and Ashi Dua.

Dibaker has also directed and produced "Freedom", the story of an Indian family interwoven with the personal, ideological and sexual history of India and how desire plays a common role in each.

ALSO READ: Netflix strengthens position as theater owners assess industry future

Shah Rukh Khan's Red Chillies Entertainment is producing "Class of 83". Directed by Atul Sabharwal, it explores the story of an upright policeman-turned-trainer whose students grapple with the complexities of honour, morals and devotion to the nation.

There will be thrills and chills with "Mrs. Serial Killer", directed by Shirish Kunder and produced by his filmmaker wife Farah Khan.

"The Internet is an exciting place for telling stories that are multi genre and multi layered," said Farah.

"Guilty", produced by Dharmatic and directed by Ruchi Narain, explores the versions of truth that emerge when a small town girl accuses the college heartthrob of rape.

Netflix strengthens position as theater owners assess industry future

Netflix is a member of the Motion Picture Association of America, the trade association for Walt Disney Co, AT&T Inc's Warner Bros. and other movie studios.

Business Standard : As movie theatre owners converge on Las Vegas for their annual convention, one topic that keeps coming up is how they contend with a company that has resisted their traditional business model: Netflix Inc.

The world’s most successful streaming service sends some movies to theatres but has insisted on making them available on Netflix at the same time, or just a few weeks later. That has upset big movie chains, which refuse to show Netflix films and want a longer “window” of time to play films exclusively.

The issue of how Netflix fits into, or threatens, the theatre business dominated a press conference on Tuesday at CinemaCon, the theatre industry trade show.

“All of your questions from the first 17 minutes or whatever are about Netflix,” grumbled John Fithian, president and chief executive of the National Association of Theatre Owners.

He insisted that Netflix and theatres can happily co-exist, citing data that showed the biggest consumers of streaming video visit theatres more often. He also said Netflix had helped revive interest in documentaries, which had helped draw people to theatres to see them.

Earlier, Fithian told a crowd in a Caesars Palace theatre that films reached their full potential only with a “robust theatrical release.” He spoke just after “Crazy Rich Asians” director Jon M. Chu said his film would not have had as big an impact if it had debuted on a streaming service.

Some members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, the group that hands out the Oscars, have been debating whether films must play in theatres for a specific length of time to compete for the awards, which could exclude Netflix or force the company to agree to longer exclusive theatrical runs.

Hollywood publication Variety reported on Tuesday that the Department of Justice had weighed in on the issue.

Antitrust chief Makan Delrahim sent a letter to the academy warning that any changes that limited eligibility for the industry’s highest honors “may raise antitrust concerns,” according to Variety.

An academy spokesperson confirmed it had received the letter and said any rule changes would be considered at an April 23 meeting. A source close to Netflix said the company was not involved with or aware of the Justice Department’s letter.

Netflix, Amazon slug it out in India's competitive video streaming market

Netflix and Amazon Prime market share gain at the cost of Indian platforms - Hotstar, VOOT, Jio Cinema.

Just like the smartphone segment, the video streaming space (also known as OTT or over the top) in the country is witnessing a fierce fight between indigenous and global players with the latter gaining a stronger foothold in the domestic market.

According to the latest data, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, two of the dominant players globally, have steadily grown their market share in the country this year at the expense of local firms such as market leader Hotstar, Jio TV and Jio Cinema.

Los Gatos (California)-headquartered Netflix saw its market share grow to 6.3 per cent till October from a mere 0.5 per cent as in the beginning of the year while Amazon Prime Video’s share grew more than two and half times to 10.8 per cent from 4 per cent, according to KalaGato, a market intelligence firm. The figures are based on installed user base derived from a sample of over one million unique smartphone users. Viewership over mobile comprises 83 per cent of the total video consumption online, according to Comscore.

As Indian users took to cheaper smartphones and faster and cheaper data, backed by a wave of internet proliferation of sorts triggered by Reliance Jio, the demand for video OTT platforms has also shot up. Local audience, like their counterparts in the developed markets, are also opening their purse strings for video subscription services. A telling statistics is that over two dozen OTT services have sprung up only in the last 18 months. 

This includes offerings from leading media houses like Balaji Telefilms (Alt Balaji), Viacom 18 (VOOT) and ZEE Media Corp (ZEE5).

While Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, which launched services in India in 2016, have an early-mover advantage, as their growth is primarily seen being driven by their expansive content library and superior product experience built on a trove of data and insights from operations in other geographies.

“There are two to three factors that drive this. One is the range of content and titles they provide owing to their access to deeper and broader content, with them being global players. The second differentiation is technology and user interface: How good their recommendation engines are, how they are able to anticipate and predict what the consumer wants, and how you present the relevant content to the consumer in an easy-to-search fashion,” said Ajay Gupta, a partner at AT Kearney who looks at communications, media and technology practice at the consulting firm. “The third driver is the creation of synergies between the e-commerce and content business, as has been in the case of Amazon. That’s an interesting synergy because ultimately it’s the same target audience that is internet savvy,” he added.

The fact that Amazon Prime Video comes bundled with the company’s next-day delivery service has brought it huge number of users. Netflix also signed up with Airtel, wherein the telecom operator gave a three-month subscription of Netflix with every Airtel post-paid connection. “Almost two lakh users came to Netflix through Airtel tie-up, which was rolled out in August,” said an analyst tracking the company.

Business Standard

Ambani vs Bezos vs Murdoch: Sacred games play out in India's content arena

Indians are watching digital video content for an average of 8 hours and 28 minutes each week, which is more than for TV.

Meghal Karekar is hooked on watching smartphone videos, an addiction shared with 200 million fellow Indians that has the world’s streaming giants beating a path to his door.

“Everywhere I go during my work day - the security guards at client offices, the receptionists, people lining up for the elevator - are on heads-down, earphones-on mode,” said Karekar, a 56-year-old architect from Bangalore. “India has always been movie-mad but the mobile phone is taking the screen mania to another level.”

As smartphone adoption surges, along with the networks capable of transmitting high-quality videos, the nascent Indian market is seeing explosive growth that is attracting everyone from Netflix Inc. to Jeff Bezos and Rupert Murdoch. They are creating original programming, developing native language content and fine-tuning their pricing strategies in the country of 1.3 billion people to get consumers to pay.

While the Indian market for over-the-top video services was worth just Rs 21.5 billion ($296 million) in the year ended March, it’s expected to grow 45 per cent annually through 2023, according to KPMG. By comparison, Netflix’s streaming business is expected to generate $7.6 billion of sales this year.

Right now it’s Hotstar, part of Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox Inc., that has the lead, helped by the rights to key cricket broadcasts. But Amazon.com Inc.’s Prime Video and Netflix are investing to win over users.

“Prime Video is to India what same-day or next day shipping is to the U.S.,” Amit Agarwal, Amazon’s India chief, said in an interview. “It’s a unique market with 700 million phone users.”

Bezos’s e-commerce giant has 30 original shows in different stages of production and many will be released next year. “Our production pipeline is bigger than anyone else,” Agarwal said.

It’s not just the sheer number of people that is appealing to streaming companies, it’s their engagement with their phones. Indians are watching digital video content for an average 8 hours and 28 minutes each week, which is more than for TV, with that number jumping 58 percent from 2016, says a study by delivery platform, Limelight Networks.

As the global giants duke it out in India, another potential entrant looms large in the form of Asia’s richest man. Billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio, with almost 240 million wireless phone users as of August, is acquiring rights to everything from soap operas and Bollywood films to the Winter Olympics for subscribers to its mobile phone network, on its way to becoming India’s largest.

For Netflix, which is in nearly half of all American households, India could hold the key to international expansion through the next 100 million new subscribers. Chief Executive Officer Reed Hastings acknowledges that India is a tough market and those new users won’t come easy... Read More

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