India has become the second largest market for Netflix in terms of net paid user additions and third in terms of revenue growth rate in the June quarter of 2024.
Netflix shared that its success in the Indian market was helmed by big successful titles. This included shows such as Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar and The Great Indian Kapil Show, movies like Amar Singh Chamkila, and licensed films such as Laapataa Ladies and Shaitaan.
While Netflix India has already renewed The Great Indian Kapil Show for a second season, Heeramandi remained the company’s biggest drama series to date in India with 15 million views.
Assessing Netflix’s growth story in India, Theodore A. Sarandos, the company’s co-CEO, in its Earnings Interview, attributed its success in India to its strategy of finding content that caters for the Indian market so that this product market fit can then attract members, retain members and monetise with them as well.
He says, “So I feel like what's going on in the quarter has been this ongoing build. We had this great show, Heeramandi, (by) Sanjay Leela Bhansali. SLB is one of the most celebrated filmmakers in India and he took on this incredibly ambitious series and brought it to screen on Netflix, directed every episode, and it's our biggest drama series to date in India.”
“On top of that, our original films and our license films, films in the pay TV window, immediately following theatrical, continue to thrill our members. We program well. We improve the product market fit. We improve engagement. We grow members. We grow our revenue,” he added.
Netflix reported a revenue of $9.5 billion seeing a 16.8% growth on a year-over-year basis in the quarter that ended on June 30, 2024. Every quarter, in the first quarter of this fiscal the company made a revenue of $9.37 billion, thus rising by 2.01% in the second quarter.
Boasting an audience of over 600 million globally, Netflix says that its key focus is to improve its programming and onboard as many stories peculiar to each of its markets, precisely why Netflix India announced releasing 22 titles in February earlier this year, almost half of which have been released so far.
Aside from its quarterly earnings, Netflix India announced that the company, with the National Film Development Corporation, will train voice-over artists in 8 languages, including English, Hindi and six regional languages as part of its Voicebox programme. Netflix will also launch a special project, “Azaadi ki Amrit Kahaniya” with select performers of the programme.
