Netflix Needs Its KBC Lest It Lose The India Plot

It began innocuously. On Thursday, Netflix, Inc. had an earnings call for the results of its fourth quarter of 2021. Nidhi Gupta, an analyst with Fidelity Management & Research Co, asked Gregory Peters, chief operating officer and chief product officer, what it was trying to achieve with a (30-60 per cent) price drop in India.

- Vanita Kohli-Khandekar

In the course of explaining, Peters talked Brazil and Japan, saying, “It took us quite a while to unlock all of these components, product market fit, get the right content. But once you get that sort of flywheel spinning, it's (Japan) an incredible market for us and a source of tremendous growth in membership and revenue. Wilmot Reed Hastings, co-founder and co-chief executive officer (CEO), added that in every other major market, we've got the flywheel spinning. The thing that frustrates us is why we haven't been as successful in India. But we're definitely leaning in there.

The internet took over.

Hastings' comment, myriad pieces of advice to Netflix, and thousands of opinions on all that is wrong with it, have been trending ever since. That is not surprising. The $30-billion Netflix “is very aspirational”, says Shailesh Kapoor, CEO, Ormax Media.

Every actor, producer, and director wants his/her show or film on the platform that birthed the streaming video market and is its largest player, with 222 million paying subscribers. The studio behind Squid Games, Money Heist, and The Crown, among hundreds of others, was the most Emmy-winning (44) and the most Oscar-winning (7) movie studio of 2021.