Published 11:42 IST, February 13th 2021
Netflix CEO lauds Reliance Jio's efforts for dramatic fall in data price in India
Netflix’s boss lauded Reliance Jio’s effort which has brought about a dramatic fall of data price in India resulting in the success of streaming services.
Netflix’s CEO, Reed Hastings on February 11 lauded Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Jio’s effort which has brought about a dramatic fall of data price in India resulting in the success of streaming services. According to Fortune India, Hastings noted that nowhere in the world have data costs gone from one of the highest to one of the lowest in the span of just four years as they have in India. He said that without the transformation brought by Reliance Jio, Netflix’s business wouldn't have worked in India.
Hastings said, “We were fortunate that just as we started investing in content, other people were investing in transforming the Internet”.
While speaking about the future plans, Hastings added, “We've been growing every year, we've been just building our team, developing content, figuring out what works, whether that's Sacred Games, or AK vs AK, just lots of different types of content. We're still in the learning phase. It's just the beginning of where we want to be in India”.
Further, on the consolidation of OTT space, the Netflix boss said that if one looks at many markets on the internet, it’s pretty fragmented with lots of different players. He added that it is difficult to create a television station in any country, but it is much easier to create a video website. “So, I think there’ll be a lot of choices,” he said.
Hastings talks about pandemic, top trends
Hastings further talked about COVID-19 pandemic situation where the audiences cannot visit cinema halls and rights to admission to the theatres are also restricted. He said that the big focus for Netflix is pleasing the members. He added that the online video streaming website wants to spend on behalf of the members, to provide them with content that they love. “And if we do that we grow. What we're most excited about is developing our own content. And that's been a big success for us,” he added.
The Netflix boss even went on to talk about some of the current top trends. He said that he would say the first is people using the internet at home, both for video conferencing and entertainment. “All of that commute time is eliminated. And they're not supposed to go out for social time. I would say people have gotten more curious about the world, because they see this, where did this pandemic come from? I have to think about the outside world. So there's been more interest in things happening around the world”.
(With inputs from ANI)
Updated 11:40 IST, February 13th 2021