Online content consumption in India has seen massive growth with data plans becoming more affordable. Video streaming company Netflix has now decided to roll out a cheaper mobile-only plan in India as it looks to woo viewers amid growing competition from Amazon Prime Videos and other local players.
After several months of testing, the company has decided to roll out a lower-priced mobile-screen plan in India to complement existing plans, Netflix said in a statement. “We believe this plan, which will launch in Q3, 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 average revenue per user (ARPU) is low (below USD 5),” it added. Netflix had been testing a Rs 250 monthly subscription for mobile devices in India. Its current plans are available for Rs 500 onwards.
Netflix Chief Product Officer Greg Peters said the company sees an opportunity to broaden access to its service in India. Peters said the company is also working on partnerships in the Indian market. “We are also working on the partnerships we have in the market because we think there are specific opportunities to improve accessibility via those partnerships as well,” he said.
Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos referred growth in India as a “marathon”. “We are in it for the long haul and we are seeing nice steady progress,” he said, adding that the company is also scaling up its library for the Indian market.
Netflix said its paid membership grew by 2.7 million in the second quarter, less than the 5.5 million in the year-ago period and its own forecast of 5 million for the June 2019 quarter. In the third quarter, Netflix said it expects to grow by 7 million paid memberships (0.8 million in the US and 6.2 million internationally) compared to an addition of 6.1 million subscribers in the year-ago period.
The company has over 148 million paid memberships in over 190 countries.