{"id":3673,"date":"2016-01-08T08:48:12","date_gmt":"2016-01-08T03:18:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newspie.in\/en\/?p=3673"},"modified":"2016-10-21T15:11:21","modified_gmt":"2016-10-21T09:41:21","slug":"opportunities-and-challenges-for-netflix-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newspie.in\/en\/hi\/3673-opportunities-and-challenges-for-netflix-india\/","title":{"rendered":"Opportunities and Challenges for Netflix India"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"NetflixOn 6 January, the US-based video streaming service Netflix opened its service up to people in the 130 countries where it was not already present. Before that those wanted to watch in those countries had to go through some contortions<\/a> in order to watch.\u00a0For those in India who faced those issues, Netflix India\u00a0is a boon.<\/p>\n

This is a huge move that will shake up the way video is watched and distributed around the world. That's because for the first time, a single service is available in nearly every country (bar Syria, Iran and North Korea, because of US laws, and China, for other reasons not covered here). Up to now content has been licensed out territory by territory, to different distributors. By becoming a global presence, Netflix will ask for and very likely get content rights to all territories. Even if Netflix\u00a0doesn't get exclusive rights, local players will have a hard time competing against\u00a0Netflix's $5 billion content budget<\/a> to achieve the same breadth of offering that Netflix will have. Throw in Netflix's increasing list of original and award winning<\/a> content, and it's technological edge in devices served and user experience, and it's hard to imagine why it wouldn't be successful.<\/p>\n

Opportunities<\/h2>\n

Premium Content<\/strong><\/p>\n

In India especially, Netflix has a great opportunity with premium, imported content. Although there have been<\/a> other streaming video players in the market for several years, none of them have broken out in terms of success. The reason, if one were to guess, is that they lacked any premium content, by which I mean content that is not\u00a0broadcast on general entertainment channels or is available only on premium tier channels. It is a vague term. Maybe the best definition is that it is the content\u00a0that people download from file-sharing sites and bit torrent.\u00a0In this environment, a certain segment of the population\u00a0may\u00a0welcome the access to the\u00a0international selection of content that Netflix brings.<\/p>\n

To see how sparse is the offering, compare\u00a0Netflix's TV shows available in India at the time of its\u00a0global launch\u00a0with the number of English shows on Box TV, Spuul and Hooq, three other video services that charge viewers for content.<\/p>\n

Netflix: 193
\nBox TV: 51
\nSpuul: 1
\nHooq: 61<\/p>\n

\"Netflix
You would be hard-pressed to find a hit show on Box TV (left), or any shows at all on Spuul (bottom right). Hooq (top right) has some shows that were past hits, but the selection is limited compared to Netflix.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Apart from a handful\u00a0of\u00a0\u00a0titles in the Box TV and Hooq lists, most of the shows on those services never featured in the top 10 shows of any premium or broadcast network in the USA\u00a0or the UK in the last 5 years.<\/p>\n

Children's Programming<\/h3>\n
\"Netflix
Netflix has a large assortment of shows for children.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One of\u00a0Netflix's other great strengths is its array of children's programming. In India at the time of launch it offered\u00a069 television shows, some of which aired in the US on the PBS Kids network,\u00a0a brand which\u00a0lends<\/a> them the cachet of respectability and education value.\u00a0Parents who want their children to learn English may find this\u00a0to be very attractive. Furthermore,\u00a0young children like to watch the same program over and over again, so even a show with only 24 episodes could keep kids occupied for multiple number of hours. For\u00a0some parents, that may be reason enough to subscribe.<\/p>\n

Challenges<\/h2>\n

Payment\u00a0Challenges<\/h3>\n

The challenges that Netflix faces in India are somewhat unique to the market.\u00a0To begin with, Netflix requires subscribers to use a credit card.\u00a0Credit cards as a payment method may be attractive to Netflix because it can use a common payment gateway for\u00a0many countries without having to build payment infrastructures in each territory. However, \u00a0only 22 million people in India\u00a0have<\/a> credit cards, a number which hasn't changed<\/a> much in the last 5 years. That means only 22 million people out of the potential 200 million Internet users can even sign up for Netflix.<\/p>\n

In order to increase its potential pool of customers, Netflix could integrate with Indian payment systems. However, then it would need to operate as a local player, which means that its credit card payments would also fall<\/a> under the Reserve Bank of India's rules. Those rules require<\/a> 2-factor authentication on card-not-present transactions. Currently, once Netflix has a subscribers card details, it automatically bills their card every month. With 2-factor authentication, Netflix would not be able to do so and would need the user to enter a one-time-password (OTP) or some other piece of information, which would make automatic billing impossible. Every time a subscriber is asked to actively make a payment, it presents a potential loss of customer, which Netflix would be keen to avoid.<\/p>\n

Censorship on the Horizon<\/h3>\n

The other issue with becoming a local player is that it would bring Netflix's content under the control of the Indian government. At the moment, as a site outside India, it can distribute content that has explicit nudity, depictions of sexual intercourse and adult language. If it is forced to submit its content to the Censor Board (CBFC<\/a>), much of it may very likely lose<\/a> its appeal.\u00a0There are anecdotal examples of people downloading content from file-sharing sites even though it is broadcast on TV in India in order to get the full version. This presents other kinds of challenges, such as for example the case when the content is not produced by Netflix. Who would make the required changes, Netflix or the original producer, and what if\u00a0the content rights owners do not agree to such changes? There is also the question of whether the CBFC<\/p>\n

State of the Internet<\/h3>\n

The last challenge for Netflix may be the way the Internet is growing in India. Most people\u00a0get online via their mobile phones. Not only does that mean a slower<\/a> and less reliable<\/a> Internet, but\u00a0most of\u00a0those access plans have limits on the\u00a0amount of data\u00a0that can be transferred. At a very low bitrate of 300Kbps, which may look okay on a\u00a0mobile phone screen, an hour of video would use up about 150MB of data. Watching just\u00a030 minutes a day for a month would require a minimum 2GB data plan.<\/p>\n

Please like NewsPie's page<\/a> on Facebook so that you get all our articles and others may find us.<\/p>\n

Update: An earlier version listed Iran as a country where Netflix is not available. This has been changed to Crimea.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Netflix India has advantages that can allow it to succeed where other video services have failed, but it faces some daunting challenges unique to India.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3684,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71,83],"tags":[160],"coauthors":[72],"class_list":["post-3673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-government","tag-analysis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newspie.in\/en\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newspie.in\/en\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newspie.in\/en\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newspie.in\/en\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newspie.in\/en\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3673"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/newspie.in\/en\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3692,"href":"https:\/\/newspie.in\/en\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3673\/revisions\/3692"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newspie.in\/en\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newspie.in\/en\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newspie.in\/en\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newspie.in\/en\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3673"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newspie.in\/en\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=3673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}