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Netflix launches Rs 199 ($2.80) mobile-only monthly plan in India

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Re: Netflix launches Rs 199 ($2.80) mobile-only monthly plan in India

#51

Post by rishav_sharan »

yial wrote: post #19
vijaybritto wrote: post #12

"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…

I agree, I think the government guaranteed wage is only 100rs per day if doing roadwork or similar. (Not sure the correct term). I believe in the Kolkata superb area, many people with a bachelors or equivalent only make $60-80 usd a month. (4000-5500rs) Of course, there are many many many people who make much more. If I think of what it costs to eat out in the US, and what it costs to eat out in India... 200rs is pro…

As a rule of thumb, I take the amount in rupees and multiply with 6 to get the equivalent in Dollars.

As an X role in a company if you make 10k per month in India, then working for the same company as X in US, you will likely make 60k.

This is mostly based on salaries info that i have but it gives me a good yardstick for mental models. This also conveniently fits with exchange rate which fluctuates between 55 to 70 INR = 1 USD.

By this yardstick, throw pillow that would be $30 USD will be around $5 (Rs. 300) in India, subject to local revisions.

I mostly use this when I need to roughly calculate how much money I should take with me while traveling.

Re: Netflix launches Rs 199 ($2.80) mobile-only monthly plan in India

#52

Post by gingabriska »

vijaybritto wrote: post #46
gingabriska wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But is that the only alternative? Why is it not possible to do it with the plain old hardware like raspberry pi?

Maybe because Raspberry pi is not a mass market hardware. Also how many in that small population are using it to watch streaming videos? Raspberry pi is for hardware enthusiasts and not for end consumers. Pi 3b costs 3000Rs. A Nokia 1 phone(android) costs 4000Rs. What are people gonna buy in these two?

Well, people can also have old laptop or desktop pc which is same as having a raspberry pi.

Re: Netflix launches Rs 199 ($2.80) mobile-only monthly plan in India

#53

Post by pier25 »

kalesh wrote: post #4

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.

> I see 30-50% of passengers consuming some sort of video content on their phones

Aren't there data caps?

Re: Netflix launches Rs 199 ($2.80) mobile-only monthly plan in India

#54

Post by NikolaeVarius »

throw0101a wrote: post #9

It seems that Techcrunch's CMS cannot (perhaps) handle Unicode headlines: Rs = ₹ * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_rupee_sign

I don't really know what this comment is supposed to imply, using the name of a currency and not the symbol is fairly common when talking about international currencies, since not everyone knows symbols or they can be confusing aka Euros/Pounds.

For example, here is a headline from a .co.uk domain that uses the word and not the symbol for Euro

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1082938/italy-fine-trav...

What are we supposed to gather from this?

Being a Tech website, Rs should be fairly well known since India comes up a lot

Re: Netflix launches Rs 199 ($2.80) mobile-only monthly plan in India

#55

Post by ofcrpls »

pier25 wrote: post #53
kalesh wrote: post #4

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.

> I see 30-50% of passengers consuming some sort of video content on their phones Aren't there data caps?

Common plans vary between 1.5-5GB per day caps.

Re: Netflix launches Rs 199 ($2.80) mobile-only monthly plan in India

#56

Post by cobookman »

benj111 wrote: post #44
pragmaticlurker wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hope to see those prices also in Europe

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…

You could just use a VPN service

Re: Netflix launches Rs 199 ($2.80) mobile-only monthly plan in India

#58

Post by 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.

Re: Netflix launches Rs 199 ($2.80) mobile-only monthly plan in India

#59

Post by aogl »

cobookman wrote: post #56
benj111 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You could just use a VPN service

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

Re: Netflix launches Rs 199 ($2.80) mobile-only monthly plan in India

#60

Post by 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?

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