Netflix marks 10 years in India as executives reflect on growth and content

As Netflix marks 10 years of operations in India, senior executives from the streaming platform have shared reflections on the market’s evolution, content strategy and India’s place in the company’s global ambitions.

Speaking about how Netflix has expanded its reach in India without repositioning itself, Ted Sarandos, co-CEO of Netflix, said: “We have expanded our pricing and product options to make Netflix accessible to more people, without moving away from being premium.” He added, “We’ve had to continually innovate and evolve our user experience, recommendations, plans and pricing, payments infrastructure and distribution partnerships across the globe. So, while our strategy of focus and continuous improvement is simple, the execution is not easy. We embrace change and relish and thrive on competition as it pushes us to improve our service even faster for our members.”

Outlining Netflix India’s programming approach, Monika Shergill, vice president – Content, Netflix India, compared the slate to a 'thali' designed to serve varied tastes. “We make premium soaps and movies and the biggest cinemas stream on Netflix. We will remain the home of the big and bold, we are also the home of relatables such as The Great Indian Kapil Show, Single Papa and The Ba***ds of Bollywood. We are programming for the broadest audiences,” she said.

On the balance between scale and speed, she added: “We stand for quality and volume. Bringing content to consumers quickly is just as important. To move fast, deliver quality projects, and do it at a certain scale and velocity, we have to spend more.” Reiterating the platform’s creative standards, Shergill said, “For us the benchmark is as true as it was when we started. We have not left that big cinematic benchmark that Sacred Games or Delhi Crime established. We have added more relatable wide-audience programming, casual entertainment.”

Bela Bajaria, chief content officer, Netflix, emphasised the importance of local storytelling within a global platform. “It’s very important that you have creators and amazing stories from the world and you allow them this space to ell a very specific, local authentic story. If you’re sitting in Mumbai, Madrid, or Mexico City, you can click on Netflix and find your local show or you can scroll over. You can watch Money Heist, Amar Singh Chamkila, or Stranger Things,” she said.

She further underlined India’s role in Netflix’s global strategy, stating: “If our ambition is to entertain the world, you definitely cannot entertain the world without having incredible local stories from India and in multiple Indian languages.”

On the business drivers behind Netflix’s growth, Sarandos said: “Our goal is to offer a wide variety of quality series, films and games that our members love. This in turn drives engagement on Netflix and when people watch more and love what they watch, they stick around longer (retention), recommend Netflix to others (acquisition) and place a higher value on our service. We monetize this engagement through both subscription and advertising revenue. So, it’s all about providing great entertainment to our members, that’s how we grow the business.”

He added, “We’ve learned that focus and continuous improvement are the best ways for us to compete and grow our business… We’ve had to build the people, partnerships, and infrastructure to produce series and films in over 50 countries in many different languages. We’ve learned how to create and nurture big franchises like Stranger Things, Squid Game, and Bridgerton.”

Reflecting on how Netflix’s India strategy evolved, Shergill said: “We were not programming for the South, we used to have original series and films but no non-fiction. We didn't have licensed play; we were buying small prestige award-winning titles, and the service was designed for the set of audiences who knew about Netflix global service.” She added, “We did Masaba Masaba and Little Things — which we have taken from YouTube after the first season. That informed people we are interested in lighter stories too. We got Kota Factory after the first season and that’s one of our most successful franchises. We also commissioned Mismatched.”

On partnerships with creators, she said: “We shared the Netflix bible openly. There is a core belief in every market we work that we are here to partner with the creative ecosystem, we are here to enable everyone to actually know what the best practices are.” Addressing criticism around access, she added: “I challenge anybody who says that Netflix India doesn't give a chance to new creators. We know if we don’t have new voices, we are not going to be able to delight or surprise our audiences… We can only help them in technical aspects or help them to reach wider audiences.”

Reaffirming Netflix’s long-term outlook on India, Bajaria said: “The focus was always to continue to invest and not to pull back. Even in India, I was like Tamil and Telugu are great markets. They have amazing movies and TV Shows. We know people love those, so let's continue to expand.” Looking ahead, she added, “We are barely scratching the surface of even doing different languages from the South. There is still so much room to continue to grow.”