American online media streaming platform Netflix crossed $1billion revenue from Asia Pacific region in first 9 months of 2019. As per Netflix this is the result for high number of subscribers in the Asia Pacific region. The company witnessed an overall growth of 57% in the revenues compared to last year revenue. During the first nine months of last year, the revenue was $669 million. Not just the revenues, but it has also seen a huge growth in the number of subscribers in the region over last 3 years.

During the first 9 months on 2017, Netflix had 5.8 million subscribers. Till Sep 2018, the number of subscribers was around 9.46 million. But by Sep 2019, Netflix saw a 3x increase in number of subscribers compared to Sep 2017 which now stood at 14.48 million.

In terms of growth in revenues and subscriber base, Asia Pacific region stands at the top. However looking at the business volumes compared with other regions, this region still occupies a very smaller portion.

Netflix receives highest revenues from Europe and United States region. Europe, Middle East and Africa(EMEA) region is the largest region having a total of 47.4 million subscribers and $4 billion of revenues by Sep 2019. Till the same period last year this region had 33.8 million subscribers and $2.87 billion revenue. After EMEA region, Latin America provides the highest business to Netflix. Its subscribers in Latin America stands at 29.4 million as of Sep 2019 and $2 billion in revenue. During the same period last year, total subscribers were 24.1 million and revenue was $1.67 billion.

Apart from the revenue and subscriber base, Netflix also gathers data about the average revenue generated by every user for each region. On this parameter, Asia Pacific region is lagging behind other regions. For Asia Pacific, average revenue per user is $9.31. For EMEA it is $10.26 while for United States, it is $12.36.

As the completion gets tougher, Netflix is forced to reduce the prices by launching more and more cheap plans in growing markets. There are already other players in the market like Disney-owned Hotstar, Amazon Prime Video, ZEE5, Times Internet*-owned MX Player, ALTBalaji, Sony LIV, and Viacom18’s Voot among others etc.

In July this year, Netflix launched a mobile app in India to reach more consumers and make it pocket friendly. It is also planning to launch this app for the entire Asia Pacific region in the coming months. They are already working on different subscription plans based on the region specific usage patterns and subscription.

On top of this Netflix is also testing to launch long term subscription plans in India. Currently for video streaming, there are 3/6/12 month plans. Discounts are offered for higher duration plans. Netflix plans to invest 3000 crore rupees during 2019-2020 in content programming in India. They are highly focused to improve their reachability in India since it is a very growing and emerging market for online streaming.

“We think about revenue as a guiding principle for us. We do these different tests and try to figure out what is the right set of plans that have the right benefits, the right features that are delivered at the right price for
the subscribers in any given market” said Netflix chief product officer Greg Peters.

India has seen a high growth in the number of internet users over the last few years. Today India is the second largest user of internet services. Also online content streaming is gaining a lot of pace here. As per the report by Boston Consulting Group, India is already on its way to touch a total of 40-50 million users and $5 billion in revenues by 2030. Due to this region, India is very crucial for Netflix’s growth.