Netflix India Content Chief Monika Shergill Lays Out Growth Roadmap (EXCLUSIVE)

variety.com:

Naman Ramachandran India is the fastest growing market market in the world for giant streamer Netflix and Monika Shergill, VP, content, for the country, has a clear plan to keep the trajectory going. “A healthy streaming business, according to us, has to be built on the strong fundamentals of engagement, where we are doing very well, and revenue and profit as a global service.

We are a profitable service – in many of our markets, we are on the path to profitability,” Shergill told Variety. Earlier this year, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos had said that content watching grew by 30% last year in India and revenue grew by 25%.

In a subsequent earnings call, Sarandos addressed the importance of pricing in India, saying: “We’ve got to get pricing and the main payment methods right.” India is an extremely price-sensitive market and Netflix, being aware of this, drastically slashed its prices in late 2021.

Netflix currently has a four-tier pricing plan for the country. The mobile plan costs INR149 ($1.82) per month, the basic plan INR199 per month, the standard plan INR499 per month and premium INR649 per month. “What we have been seeing with the pricing shift is that we’ve really opened access to a large audience base that is keen to watch Netflix, which is why we have been seeing the kind of momentum that we’ve had over the last year,” Shergill said. “From a revenue standpoint, despite the price recalibration, the fact that our revenue increased by 25% is an indicative factor that we have grown.” “Addressing pricing constantly is not the way to grow – bettering your content and providing more value by way of the content we create, the content we buy, the different genres, formats, tastes, moods that we program for, also