Netflix to open office in Mumbai

Netflix, the California-based video streaming service provider, is all set to open its India office this year in Mumbai, to further focus in the market.

According to company sources and the National US-India Chamber of Commerce, the Mumbai office is expected to be the company’s fourth in Asia, after Tokyo, Singapore and Taiwan.

Netflix co-founder and chief executive Reed Hastings during his May visit to India had expressed his wish to open an office to focus on the growing market in India. “India is hugely important for Netflix in the long-term because it’s one of the strongest Internet markets (in the world), and Internet TV is the future,” said Hastings.

When asked about its India plan, a Netflix spokesperson said India is an incredibly exciting country for the company with its diverse and vibrant entertainment landscape where there is already 300 million mobile users. “We are focused on the Indian market, specifically on content, partnerships and technology, to drive a great Netflix experience in the market,” the spokesperson said.

“We want to become the leading producer and distributor of high quality Indian content. This year, we will double down on Indian investment looking to curate a compelling content library encompassing original and licenced titles,” the spokesperson told DH.

On local licenced content, the company has already partnered with Shah Rukh Khan’s Red Chillies Entertainment and Viacom and their films will be screened on the service starting Q2.

Open Connect, the company’s own in-house CDN (content delivery network), is placed in data centres of major ISPs (Internet exchange locations) close to clients, and it will minimise the long-distance network traffic and distribute files as fast as possible.

“Netflix has the downloads feature where users can download their favourite shows and watch them in low or no bandwidth environments. The new mobile encodes we are rolling out, will allow users to watch up to 25 hours of Netflix for just 2GB of data, and have good picture quality while streaming in low-bandwidth conditions as low as 200kbps,” states the official.

In the first quarter of 2017 (January-March), Netflix had over 98 million subscribers globally, and over 47 million subscribers were based outside the US.

It is competing in the Indian market with 21st Century Fox-owned Hotstar and Amazon Prime.