Netflix CEO happy with Sacred Games' performance, investing Rs 3,000 crore in India

Following the success of Sacred Games, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has confirmed the company's aggressive investment strategy for the Indian market. Hastings emphasised on creating more Indian shows and movies in 2019-2020. Netflix has invested more than Rs 3,000 to build India originals content library.

Reed Hastings praises Sacred Games

Netflix chief said that Saif Ali Khan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui starrer Sacred Games happens to be among the top-performing Netflix shows. Hastings also applauded the performance of other originals like Little Things and Delhi Crime.

Big plans for India

Hasting confirms Netflix is looking to ramp up its Indian original content and results will start to show in the coming months.

"We launched in 2016 and we have continued to invest. So we have a lot of content from the United States, the UK and Spain. We are developing our Indian content here.

"This year and next year, we spend about Rs 3000 crore developing content and you will start to see a lot of stuff hit the screens. We got about 100 employees in Mumbai and a couple thousand working on different productions. So we are trying to become more Indian in content offering," Hastings said.

Hastings said not just Netflix, all the streaming services are betting big on Indian content in terms of investment.

"The next 5-10 years will be the golden age of television. You are seeing unbelievable and unrivalled levels of investment. Partially from the global companies like Apple, Amazon, Disney and Viacom. There are all investing here in India as well as in the UK and the US. We are seeing more content made than ever before. It's a great export. 

"The internet has the possibility to really transform the Indian content market to be export-driven. So far, we have had some amazing successes. 'Sacred Games' travelled around the world. We are really excited about those stories," he added.

Hastings cited the example of animated series "Mighty Little Bheem".

"In the last one year, 27 million households outside of India have started watching 'Mighty Little Bheem'. So, Indian ideas and characters are spreading. We got one eye on being very local and authentic and one eye on what will be shared around the world."

(With PTI inputs)