
Netflix launches Rs 199 ($2.80) mobile-only monthly plan in India - itsyogesh
https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/24/netflix-launches-rs-199-2-8-mobile-only-monthly-plan-in-india/
======
wtmt
I've said this here before (though some seem to have disliked it). The Netflix
UX and video quality are leagues ahead of Amazon Prime Video. Hotstar is a big
laggard and far, far behind in every single aspect except for the amount of
Indian content it has.

India is a highly price sensitive country, with absolutely no customer loyalty
in most industry sectors. Nothing can beat free (which is where Hotstar is
stuck, competing with YouTube).

It will be a tough act for Netflix to make anything from this plan. For this
particular price point, restricted to mobile and a single screen at a time,
what matters to this audience segment would be more Indian content. Netflix
lags on that aspect quite a bit. It has some good Indian language originals,
but India is a huge country with 22 official languages (and several hundreds
more of unofficial languages), and these originals with a mix of Hindi and
English may not appeal to a very wide audience. At the very least, it should
voice dub shows in other languages. A better approach would be to use the
diverse talent of content creators across languages and states, and provide
those with a voice dub in other languages.

India as a country produces more than 1000 movies every year. While most are
not worth watching (for movie buffs), there are several gems if one looks at
all the languages and picks the best among those.

Netflix should focus strongly on licensing content produced by others and get
recent releases if it wants to keep up in the Indian market. Amazon Prime is
very quick in getting recently released Indian language movies on its
platform. Hotstar may be similar too.

Edit and addendum:

Actually, on further thought, this plan doesn't make much sense at all by
itself. Many people in India share Netflix accounts with friends or family and
share the costs too. Such people would be much better off with the highest
plan for Rs.800 a month while having five profiles, four simultaneous screens
(shared with three other people), flexibility to watch on any device (not just
mobile), using 4K quality if desired, etc. Sharing that with three others
(four in total) brings the cost to Rs.200 per person, which is just one rupee
more than this mobile plan for Rs.199.

It's going to be even tougher for Netflix to make money through this plan
without more partnerships and incentives. Maybe this plan could push people to
move to higher tiers and account sharing. I can only think of this as acting
as a teaser and getting the foot in the door. Only time will tell. This plan
is not meant to have many more subscribers than the other tiers.

~~~
darkpuma
Let me preface this by admitting that I'm a very poor judge of video quality
since I generally think those 720p/700MB torrent encodes are swell. So I'm
going to ignore the matter of video quality; by my awful standards they're
both perfectly adequate.

I think Amazon has Netflix beat on UX. To search Netflix without using third
party tools is a real nightmare. The user interface seems user-hostile, like
it's designed to conceal from the user the true breadth of Netflix's library
(I earnestly believe it was.) It wasn't always this bad, in the early days of
netflix's streaming business the search wasn't bad, and back when they were a
DVD service (which is when I first subscribed) the search functionality was
pretty decent even.

But with Amazon video, you've got the search features built into the amazon
prime apps, which admittedly usually sucks, but you've also got the option of
searching on amazon.com itself, or on IMDB (which has been owned by Amazon
since the late 90s.) Searching on IMDB is what I do. When doing advanced
searches you can specify that you're only interested in movies that are free
on amazon prime in your region.

E.g.: _Feature Action movies that are free on Amazon Prime in the US, and are
in the IMDB Top 1000:_
[https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?title_type=feature&genres...](https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?title_type=feature&genres=action&groups=top_1000&online_availability=US%2Ftoday%2FAmazon%2Fsubs)

(Perhaps IMDB advanced search for prime videos is bad UX for casual users
(although it was my non-technical mother who brought my attention to it, so
I'd push back against that notion) but at the very least it's an option. While
I've seen third party websites offering a good proper advanced search of
Netflix's catalogue, as far as I know if you stick to Netflix operated search
interfaces you're basically stuck up shit creek.)

~~~
edgarvaldes
>those 720p/700MB torrent encodes

Are those still produced for recent movies?

~~~
darkpuma
Sometimes, but it's becoming less and less common.

------
vijaybritto
"Indian consumer market remains value-conscious" \- this is the most important
point here. But 200rs per month too seems very expensive. I'm not sure how
this will play out. Let's see.

Hotstar has been killing it. They have the massive advantage of streaming live
sports, especially IPL and other cricket matches.

I think Netflix will become the next Apple in India. They gotta think like an
Indian company and not as an American company!

~~~
epiphanitus
>> I think Netflix will become the next Apple in India. They gotta think like
an Indian company and not as an American company!

Whats the difference between thinking like an Indian company vs an American
company? You got me curious.

>> Hotstar has been killing it. They have the massive advantage of streaming
live sports, especially IPL and other cricket matches.

I take it they are funding it with ads? Do you think they will fund everything
with ads long term or are they just buying time to build market share before
converting to a subscription model?

~~~
govg
The difference is usually in the kind of customer you wish to attract - in
India companies tend to focus on lower cost to acquire customers, and this
works just because of the sheer size of the country. You have cities with
populations in the millions, which have a sizeable population with access to
high quality internet services. In the US, the focus would be on higher
margins per customer, both because the total number of available customers
aren't as high as in India, and an individual customer can afford a lot more
than in India.

------
billfruit
Still will be difficult for them to catch up, with Amazon prime working out to
be rs85 per month, and hotstar having a massive multilingual catalogue+live
sports including most cricket and EPL, Netflix limited catalogue is not
exactly value at rs 199.

Only they do have some robust infrastructure like Amazon, hotstar service
seems somewhat struggling under the load of millions of people watching at
prime times.

~~~
manojlds
Netflix was trialling the mobile only plans for a while and I have been using
the weekly billed one (not sure if it's available with this update now) for
RS.65. That's the best value for me - sign-up for a week for some new content
once in a quarter or so. Otherwise, Netflix is way way behind others in India
like you say.

------
amrrs
Since the rise of Reliance Jio, Two things happened: 1\. Sales of Budget 4G
Phone. 2\. Internet Content Consumption on Phone With that, This is a super-
smart move from Netflix to fight Hotstar-like Indian Soap-Opera packed
Streaming Services.

In fact, Indians were massively watching Netflix already - but using someone
else's Account - which is a very common way of saving money. Now this is Rs.
199 is probably going to change that because it's more like a Mobile Plan
Recharge.

I guess this is the power of introducing a price-plan using Data Science as
Netlfix's teams must have found out the importance of Smartphone (Device) and
the game Indians were playing.

~~~
pragmaticlurker
hope to see those prices also in Europe

~~~
benj111
Id be interested to know if the downvoters think you're morally wrong, or
whether they think its just never going to happen.

I'm reminded of a court case in the UK between Tesco and Levis. Tesco were
importing Levis from the US where they retailed and presumably wholesaled for
much less than in Europe, but were forced to stop distribution due to
trademark rules. I wonder if you could avoid that by reselling debranded
Netflix, I'd guess you'd fall foul of a load of other laws doing that though.

[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1261829.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1261829.stm)

~~~
cobookman
You could just use a VPN service

~~~
aogl
Netflix has VERY good VPN and proxy detection.. give it a try..

------
kalesh
This should help them somehow. Everyone knows about Netflix but only a few
have a monthly paid subscription. Rs 650 is kind of expensive for one service
with limited content.

I travel in the metro quite regularly, I see 30-50% of passengers consuming
some sort of video content on their phones. There is demand for sure. Only
time can tell if this new plan really helps Netflix getting more paid
subscribers.

~~~
vijaybritto
But how many in those 30 to 50% are consuming paid video content? That would
be an interesting metric

~~~
kalesh
Very less. Piracy is still rampant. I find it quite common people viewing cam
rips on their mobile. Theatres are expensive in metros. I do feel this is a
good move by Netflix. Local content is a problem though. Let's see how this
pans out.

------
throw0101a
It seems that Techcrunch's CMS cannot (perhaps) handle Unicode headlines: Rs =
₹

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_rupee_sign](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_rupee_sign)

~~~
AimForTheBushes
It may just be for their American audience. I know Rs but have never seen the
symbol until right now.

~~~
throw0101a
When I saw "Rs", given that I work in an academically-related field, I first
interpreted it as relating to the R statistical language.

Then, during the parsing of the title, my second interpretation was that "Rs
199" was the model number of some sort.

The letters "Rs" do not, as someone from North America, mean a currency to me.
IMHO, using a 'special' character like ₹ would help me interpret things
better.

(But that's just me.)

~~~
AimForTheBushes
If you work with R wouldn't it just be R? I've never seen R Studio abbreviated
to Rs. If anything I could see a programmer interpreting it as rust but the
capitalized R would be weird.

------
spacemonkey92
So this was the reason netflix killed its airplay support?

[https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/6/18298146/netflix-
confirms-...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/6/18298146/netflix-confirms-it-
yanked-airplay-support-wont-let-you-beam-shows-to-apple-tvs-anymore)

~~~
sharatvir
Wow. Yet another Netflix update that antagonizes users.

Though I suppose this one isn’t a deal breaker. Don’t all airplay capable
devices (Apple TV, newer smart TVs, etc) have their own Netflix client?

------
lookageek
480p streaming which this plan offers will look absolutely pathetic in most
Android phones (by this time has 98-99% share in India) which boast ever
increasing screen resolutions. So I bet this plan has no takers for people who
love beautiful resolutions on their phones which cost sub $300.

~~~
Zenst
480p isn't that bad, but then it depends upon what your used too. But way
better than 640x480 resolution that many grew up with.

India consumers are really price savvy and look for value for money more than
most people I know and with that, not as easily hooked into the fashion whims
of society. Though that may well change as the average income rises.

I had a look at the best selling phones in India and
[https://www.gizbot.com/best-selling-phones/](https://www.gizbot.com/best-
selling-phones/) and it is most insightful, of note - not one single Apple
product there. Though I do recall Apple looking at producing phones locally -
which would help in price as would avoid import taxation saving around 20% of
the price and allow them to pass that onto the consumer.
[https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/news/story/apple-
foxcon...](https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/news/story/apple-foxconn-
iphone-mass-manufacturing-in-india-report-1502794-2019-04-16)

~~~
lookageek
To add a counterpoint - think about a much bigger whale - Youtube -
automatically upscales to 1080p when network and devices supports it. And
Youtube in India is much much bigger over Hotstar and all other streaming
providers. 80% of internet users of India use YouTube
[https://gadgets.ndtv.com/internet/news/youtube-india-
penetra...](https://gadgets.ndtv.com/internet/news/youtube-india-penetration-
mobile-user-base-225-million-google-1828048). You can see that people know
their 1080p when they see it.

~~~
opencl
1080p Youtube is ~8Mbps and will go through the entire 1GB Jio daily data cap
in 15-20 minutes.

------
parsimo2010
Is saying, "the mass consumer market remains value-conscious" just a polite
way of saying that Indians don't feel like wasting their hard earned money
when pirating is easy?

Or is it that regular priced Netflix is a large enough portion of a normal
Indian's income that they don't feel like they get enough to watch for their
money?

Most of the people I know in America basically shrug off the price of Netflix
as the cost of a few cups of coffee per month

I'm not sure what the right interpretation is, but they kind of lead to
different business strategies. The first (easy piracy) is not really Netflix's
problem to solve, it's the government's problem. The second (content for
money) is either that Netflix needs to invest in more Indian shows or lower
their prices even more.

~~~
geodel
I think your second interpretation looks right. Media has this rather
irritating habit of not simply saying that "Most people can't afford" these
services. Instead they come up with bullshit like "value-conscious",
"value/price-sensitive" "hard negotiator/bargain hunter" etc.

Poverty/Income level topics are reserved for UN or WHO type reports and
research papers.

Regarding 'piracy vs content for money' I'd add in Indian context it is same
thing. People pirate not because high idealism like "content wants to be free"
but mainly because most people can't afford any better. If one reverse
argument and say people will stop pirating if content is conveniently
available like via netflix it will still not work because even 2 dollar/month
is too expensive for people who would rather have rented pirated DVD for 5-10
cents and multiple families watch together.

------
philjohn
Smart move - India has massive mobile data usage, and for many people it's
their only form of internet access.

Huge, mosly untapped market - it will be interesting to watch their content
strategy, will we see Bollywood Netflix originals?

~~~
Brajeshwar
There are a lot of Netflix Originals, mostly Bollywood, intended for Indian
audiences.

------
Brajeshwar
Netflix should work out partnerships with Internet and Telecom Providers to
get this working at a massive volume. If Netflix can club their billing, may
not be necessary monthly, along with the likes of Jio/Airtel Recharge
billings, it will be an easy access to the target subscribers they are looking
for.

For the majority of Indian masses that this is intended for, it is not just
the pricing but the payment method is one of the hurdles.

Lot of people still "recharge" their prepaid phone bills with cash.

~~~
bharam
> Lot of people still "recharge" their prepaid phone bills with cash.

Didn't India outlaw cash?

~~~
sn41
No. They withdrew the 500 and 1000 Rupee bills in circulation in 2016, which
was around 86 percent of all the cash in the country, which is the 6th largest
economy in the world at present. But cash circulation is almost back to normal
by now.

------
geodel
In some ways Indians are like Americans. They like to be endlessly entertained
with movies and sports(mainly cricket though). I think 200 rupees plan could
add lot more users. Regarding what this media expert Shah claims about local
content, I am not sure what kind of things Netflix can offer that local
providers are not already doing in abundance.

~~~
triceratops
I think the appeal of movies and sports is pretty universal.

------
ashelmire
The reason these paid services are successful in the US is because we have a
fully functional and very threatening legal and corporate system that will
find and punish people that steal their content and distribute it. This makes
it inconvenient or risky to use free services (about ~13 years ago it was more
convenient to pirate, with p2p sharing apps being very popular at US colleges
and any music or film a click away, before enforcement ramped up).

Does India have the same level of legal enforcement? Why pay for a streaming
service if they can pirate content?

------
superasn
Yes considering hotstar which offers english tv serials like GOT, originals
and live cricket matches for 999 / yr it's about time Netflix did something
similar

------
pgt
Will be interesting to see if any VPN streaming services pop up to resell this
outside of India.

------
justfor1comment
Don't understand why the subscription is cheaper on a mobile phone, if the
content and resolution is the same. Also, won't you be able to use something
like Samsung Dex to watch this content on a tv anyways?

~~~
Zombieball
Resolution is not the same. It’s limited to 480p.

------
notadoc
Is this considered affordable in India?

What is a considered 'good' salary in India?

~~~
govg
For the vast majority of Indians - probably not.

For the Indians living in tier 1 - 2 cities, in their 20s - 30s, with access
to high speed internet (4G, 1GB per day caps), definitely. For comparison the
most popular of these mobile data plans (which also offer unlimited calls)
come in at around 300-400rs per month. And there are enough Indians in this
bracket for Netflix to carve out a good chunk of the market.

------
maqbool
Fuck you Netflix 480p Huh

------
dustinmoris
Moves like this really demonstrate the economics of most internet businesses.
There is no real tangible link between what people pay and what it nearly
costs to offer a service over a stream of bits & bytes.

Netflix started at $7.99 in 2010 and today for the same subscription you pay
$12.99, which is a 62.5% price hike. That is particularly interesting, because
it's considerably more than the inflation over the same period of time, which
is at only 17.5%
([https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/](https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/)).

Content got cheaper through Netflix's own productions, engineering
optimisations over the last 10 years probably also helped to significantly
reduce infrastructure cost for the same service which someone paid $7.99
before and hosting got cheaper as well as Azure and Google Cloud have
significantly started to compete with Amazon, yet customers pay A LOT more.

Now they want to capture a share of the Indian market and can basically offer
a "reduced" service for only a small fraction of the price what a US customer
pays, even though nothing changes in terms of what they have to pay their
engineers and hosting, etc. in order to sustain the company. Yes there will be
a little bit of additional infrastructure cost to also facilitate 480p
streaming in India, but I doubt that has anything to do with the actual
pricing.

I bet Netflix would happily offer HD streaming to Indian customers for the
same price if there wasn't a risk of upsetting other paying customers from
different countries.

Netflix customers will pay arbitrary made up prices always going up and never
going down for as long as there is still enough people who just don't care to
foot the bill every month. A sense of entitlement to be treated fairly or
otherwise walk away, even if that means that you have to spend more time with
friends instead of binge watching dumb TV is being lost in this world.

~~~
TheCoelacanth
> Content got cheaper

Citation needed. Everything I've heard is that content is getting more
expensive for them because there are more streaming services competing for
content.

