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Tag: Gregory Peters

  • Asia Pacific region leads in Netflix Q3 2024 results

    Asia Pacific region leads in Netflix Q3 2024 results

    MUMBAI: The Asia Pacific region is shining for Netflix. At least as far as net subscribers additions  (net paid adds) are concerned.  The region at 2.28 million net adds in Q3 calendar year 2024 was the topmost contributor. It was followed by  2.17 million net adds in Europe, middle east and Africa (EMEA) and 0.69 million net adds  in the US and Canada.  Latin America saw a shaving off of 0.07 million net adds during the period. This was revealed by the global streaming giant in its  latest financial performance report on Thursday in the US. 

    Overall, that totted up to five million net paid sub adds in the latest quarter, giving the streamer 282.7 million subscribers globally. It also helped increase its revenue to $9.8 billion  – a 15 per cent rise over the corresponding quarter of the previous year. Net income also showed improved to $2.3 billion.  

    The company said it was working on  improving its  product/market fit in APAC and it had a strong local content slate in Japan, Korea, Thailand and India in Q3. As a result, its  revenue growth rate in APAC (19 per cent growth year on year) led all regions.  The  revenue growth figures for the other regions were: US & Canada and EMEA  (16 per cent – 10 per cent growth in average paid members and five per cent growth in average revenue per member) and Latin America (nine per cent). 

    “..(We are)…increasingly seeing a steady drumbeat of hit titles from countries around the world,” said Netflix co-CEO, president & director Gregory Peters, during an earnings call with investment analysts. “…you’ve got Japan. You’ve got Korea. You’ve got Thailand. You’ve got India. This represents, again, that decade-plus investment in those creative communities, working with local storytellers there and making sure that they have the capability to tell their stories in a compelling way. So that’s super exciting and we expect to see more of that.”

    Among the shows and films from APAC  which did well in the quarter included: Tokyo Swindlers  from Japan (10.5 million views) and Culinary Class Wars from South Korea (11.0 million views),  Officer Black Belt  (South Korea, 32.8 million views), and Maharaja (India, 22.6 million views).

    Netflix revealed that it streams around 200 billion hours of content yearly and that engagement continues to be healthy at about two hours per day per paid membership on average, despite the impact of paid sharing.  That is only expected to go up with the push into live streaming of the WWE  for 52 weeks, the Mike Tyson-Jake Paul fight (15 November), and the NFL in December.

    Peters said that “it’s worth noting that our share of viewership in even our biggest countries is still less than 10 per cent of TV time. So we look at this as there’s a huge opportunity to grow that share by.. invest (ing) more in our slate, continue (ing) to improve the variety and quality of our offering.”

    Additionally, it is continuing its push into the ad based free subscription service which grew 35 per cent in term of number viewers getting into it. This is being done through refining the tech in its back end platform , increasing the number of viewers signng up for it and coming up with new formats for advertising.

    On the content front , Netflix  Ted Sarandos said that Q3 had some big hits: Perfect Couple, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, and Nobody Wants This.

    He added that “we’re really excited about our Q4 slate because it’s filled with great big titles from the U.S., from Brazil, from Korea, from the U.K., from Germany…. Carry-On, Piano Lesson, Spellbound, Six Triple Eight, Emilia Pérez.  So when we look forward into 2025 and beyond, we want to build on that success So our 2025 slate, I look at that as another ambitious step towards this push to make us even greater for our members. 
    So looking into 2025, you’ve got new seasons of our biggest shows: Wednesday, Squid Games, Stranger Things, on top of new shows from Shonda Rhimes and Ryan Murphy, a new Knives Out film from Ryan Johnson, Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, even the return of Happy Gilmore. So we could not be more excited about where we sit right now and where we’re heading.”

     

  • Netflix’s reinvigorated strategy for the next decade & India’s growing role

    Netflix’s reinvigorated strategy for the next decade & India’s growing role

    KOLKATA: Netflix wants to be the ‘best friend’, the primary choice of streamers across the world. While the streaming rat race is picking up internationally, Netflix is moving fast and expanding its content mix. It has moved on from only focusing on scripted episodic originals to also strive to replicate the success of premium TV in unscripted content, movies and animation. This, for Netflix, is the “next decade” of opportunities.

    “We are so excited about the next decade of Netflix growth. We've definitely got a good start, but the opportunity across the next decade is just amazing for us. It's a lot international but I couldn't be more excited about it, and it will be great to have some help as we expand the globe, and I'm looking forward to that.  And to be totally clear, I'm in for a decade. And as co-CEO, it's two of us full time. It's not like a part-time deal. So it's definitely broadening the management team and help us grow even faster over the next 10 years,” Netflix co-founder and co-CEO Reed Hastings said as he named chief content officer Ted Sarandos as co-CEO.

    Is Netflix in the next ten years the same compared to the last years? Hastings said in an earnings call after Q2 results that it has got a good model for the next ten years and just need to make it better. Netflix has historically spent most of its money on content but it is also working on making the service better, more user-friendly with a smarter UI.

    “A couple of years ago, we only had a premium TV. And now to be really good in movies, to be really good in unscripted, emerging in animation, very strong in local language shows and series, I mean it's an incredible expansion that Ted has pulled off over the last five years. So think of it as just us doing more of that at a higher scale and pleasing more people,” he added. 

    Sarandos, the content king at Netflix said that if the platform aims to be the go-to destination for entertainment, it would not be a smart move to ignore the area of programming that dominates broadcast. Hence, it has been dabbling in unscripted reality. Notably, Netflix has significantly spoken more of animated content in the last one year which is the best weapon of its rival Disney+.

    Hastings said that the content team is coming up with some big bets. “We want to have so many hits that when you come to Netflix, you can just go from hit to hit to hit and never have to think about any of those other services, right? We want to be like your primary, your best friend, the one you turn to. And of course, occasionally, there's Hamilton and you're going to go to someone else's service for an extraordinary film. But for the most part, we want to be the one that just always please you with the convenience, simple and easy choice,” Hastings said.

    Despite leading the streaming revolution, competition is going to be the biggest challenge for the pioneer in the next ten years with deep-pocket rivals like Disney+, Apple TV+, HBO Max and Peacock having entered the market. Even more of the traditional networks are now pulling off content from Netflix for their digital arms causing a big dent in the library as the evergreen popular shows still attract eyeballs.

    As the US market gets overcrowded with large-scale contenders, Netflix is going to focus highly on international markets. “When I think about what our future is and I think it's just a tremendous next stage of growth that we will see mostly coming from outside the United States. So think of more and more employees outside the United States, more productions, more operations happening outside the US and hopefully, many, many more members outside the US. This is an opportunity to lean in just a little bit more, be proactive and drive a little bit more alignment across those activities where we think alignment will benefit the business and push the optimisation of those activities a little bit more,” Netflix COO and chief product officer Gregory Peters said.

    Meanwhile, Netflix has already set its eye on the largest growing OTT market – India.  It set an audacious goal of getting its next 100 million subscribers from the country. This is a tougher market to crack given the local rivals alongside Disney+ Hotstar and Amazon Prime Video. In the last quarter, it has added less than three million paid subscribers from the entire APAC region. However, despite the slow growth, Netflix is increasing investment here. A few days ago, it announced 17 new local originals. As the Netflix bosses embrace the excitement for the coming 10 years, reinvigorated content strategy and international expansion can save it from the dwindling position of once-undisputed streaming king and definitely there will more spending to get Indian audiences.

  • Netflix subscriptions to get cheaper in India

    Netflix subscriptions to get cheaper in India

    MUMBAI: Netflix is tuning itself to India’s needs. Netflix chief product officer Gregory Peters said in an earnings call that the company will experiment with cheaper pricing models, betting on India to bring in its next 100 million subscribers for its long-term goal in a bid to increase its growth.

    Netflix is currently the most expensive streaming service in India. It has three existing plans in the country priced at Rs 500, Rs 650 and Rs 800 per month. The Rs 500 plan is for a single screen while Rs 650 plan offers HD content. On the other hand, Amazon Prime offers annual subscription in India at Rs 999 and also has a Rs 129 per month plan.

    “We’ll experiment with other pricing models, not only for India but around the world that allows us to sort of broaden access by providing a pricing tier that sits below our current lowest tier and we'll see how that does in terms of being able to accelerate our growth and get more access,” said Peters.

    Company executives in the earnings call said that they were encouraged with the growth they have seen in India. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said that the company will take it ‘one million at a time’ when it comes to subscriber growth in the market. “There are over 300 million mobile households and almost twice that in mobile subscription, so there’s a huge market,” he added.

    Netflix has also planned to take on competition in India with more multi-lingual content. Hastings said that after signalling possible options, it could expand beyond English into Hindi and then into more languages, more pricing options and more bundling.

    In the past, Netflix launched its first original show in India Sacred Games followed by Lust Stories and Ghoul. It has also released a movie called Love Per Square Foot.

    Netflix’s streaming revenue grew by 36 per cent year over year in Q3 to $3.9 billion, as average paid membership increased by 25 per cent and ASP rose by 8 per cent. International revenue included a -$90 million year over year impact from currency, excluding the impact of F/X, international ASP rose 11 per cent year over year and 2 per cent sequentially.