No reason Netflix can’t hit 100 million subscribers in India: Ted Sarandos
Ted Sarandos, co-CEO of Netflix, feels that the company has finally cracked the Indian market and is seeing remarkable growth in both subscribers and engagement. In an interview, he said Netflix is committed to investing in India and that getting to 100 million subscribers in the country is achievable. Sarandos also said that introducing an ad-supported plan in the US made sense as the subscription market there was saturated, while India's still had room to grow.
On the linear TV vs streaming debate, he said that even though broadcast television is cheap or even free in India, the evolution to streaming is inevitable as it offers far greater value and control. Here are some edited excerpts from the interview: It feels that way, and we want to keep doing that. The core of every international expansion for us has been product-market fit.
Are we priced correctly for the market and is the programming attractive to our members? We're so much further along that continuum and it definitely feels like we found a nice new gear in India. The thing that I love about coming to India every time is that it's always changing, it's always growing and it's always moving very quickly. It's a very high-energy country.
Last year, India was our fastest-growing market and this year, too, it remains one of our five fastest-growing markets. This is not just about delivering people's favourite movies and series, but setting the expectation that the next one will also be great. That's what we've been up to and I think it's coming together in ways that we couldn't have imagined a few years ago.
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