Stealing The Dragon’s Thunder? India, Not China To Be The Focal Point In Netflix’s Expansion Plan In Asia

India, not China, is on the cards to be the centre of Netflix’s expansion plan for audiences across Asia, reports CNBC.

Netflix's chief content officer Ted Sarandos has said that Netflix sees Asia’s young and increasing digital population as an “incredible opportunity” to increase international subscription.

Out of 137 million global subscribers, Asia contributes a massive 58 million subscribers with the contninent recently having surpassed the United States. Ted Sarandos adds that the company is in their ‘early early days’ in Asia and has ‘very specific initiatives’ for each of the territories within the region.

India will be the centre of Netflix’s plans, with Sarandos saying they hope to add 100 million subscribers in India itself, by leveraging India’s growing demand for video streaming. "If you think about the opportunity, there's about 450 million internet users in India and about half of them are watching video on YouTube and services like that, which makes for a very interesting, addressable market," said Sarandos.

However, it will not be a piece of cake for the California-based company as they will have to face stern competition from likes of Amazon and Hotstar, who are already operating economically-priced media streaming models.

To face these challenges, Sarandos says the Netflix will not only be testing various pricing models but also add multiple locally produced original content that will attract both Indian and foreign audiences. Over 100 original projects within the region are upcoming in the years ahead. "The exciting part about that is that we're able to come in and produce locally, using local story-tellers, and tell those stories on a grand scale because we can find a global audience," he said.