India becomes Netflix's second-biggest market

Netflix Inc. has reported its second-quarter results for 2023, revealing significant growth in India. The country has become the streaming giant's second-largest market for "paid net subscriber additions" and its third-largest market in terms of "revenue percent growth."

On Thursday, Netflix announced a 17% increase in revenue, reaching $9.56 billion. The company's operating margin also improved, rising to 27% in Q2 2024 from 22% in the same period last year. Globally, Netflix's paid memberships surged by 16.5%, growing from 269.60 million in Q1 2024 to 277.65 million in Q2 2024.

In the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region, which includes India, Netflix saw its paid memberships increase from 47.50 million in Q1 2024 to 50.32 million in Q2 2024. Paid net additions also rose, reaching 2.83 million in Q2 2024 compared to 2.16 million in Q1 2024. Revenue in the APAC region grew to $1.05 billion in Q2 2024.

"India was our No.2 and No.3 country in terms of paid net subscriber additions and revenue percent growth, respectively," said Theodore A. Sarandos, Co-CEO, President & Director, during a media conference. "There's certainly plenty of room to grow in India as long as we keep thrilling our audiences there," he added.

Sarandos credited Indian filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali and his show "Heeramandi" for contributing to Netflix's success in India during Q2. "SLB is one of the most celebrated filmmakers in India, and he took on this incredibly ambitious series and brought it to the screen on Netflix, directing every episode. It's our biggest drama series to date in India," he said.

In its stock exchange filing, Netflix highlighted that "Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar" amassed 15 million views globally. Other popular Indian shows and films included Diljit Dosanjh's "Amar Singh Chamkila" with 8.3 million views, along with licensed films such as "Laapataa Ladies" and "Shaitaan."

Other top-performing shows on Netflix in Q2 included "The Great Indian Kapil Show," "Bridgerton S3," "Baby Reindeer," "Queen of Tears," and films such as "Under Paris," "Atlas Hit Man," and "The Roast of Tom Brad."

Discussing the company's advertising segment, Chief Financial Officer Spencer Adam Neumann noted that the revenue portion of ads is growing "nicely." "The rate of growth is substantial, although it's starting from a relatively small base as we're only 18 months into the ad business," Neumann said.

"We've been scaling our ads member base very quickly, and we're excited to say that we're on track to achieve our critical scale goals for all our ads countries by 2025," added Gregory K. Peters, Co-CEO, President & Director.

Netflix is also expanding its sales and operations teams to meet advertiser demands and plans to launch its own ad server in Canada this year, with the rest of its ad markets following in 2025.

On the gaming front, Peters reported that Netflix has launched over 100 games to date, with more than 80 in development. In Q2, the platform launched games such as "Virgin River" and "Perfect Match," and it plans to release one new title per month starting in July as part of its Netflix Stories initiative.