Netflix likely to be launched in India at CES next week

The company is expected to disclose its plans at the consumer technology trade show CES 2016, which will be held in Las Vegas. Meanwhile a Cisco VNI report indicates that 15,418 minutes of video are streamed or downloaded every second in India.

Netflix earlier had plans to enter Asian markets starting with Singapore, Hong Kong, and two other nations in early 2016.

In India, Netflix is expected to follow the Apple Music route and price it much lower than its United States pricing.

Netflix has reportedly partnered with a telecom operator for 4G networks. Last week, Reliance made available 4G to its employees.

News about Netflix entering India have been reported since June 2015 but nothing concrete has evolved from the same until now. Netflix, which features both movies and TV shows, charges its service to users at $8.99 (roughly Rs. 600) per month. Apart from offering content streaming in partnership with major movie studios and TV networks, it also has exclusive rights of airing some content and producing original shows. Netflix, which is also struggling with a savage competition from other streaming services such as Amazon.com Inc’s Prime Video service and Hulu, has been aggressively strengthening its presence in the overseas. The service will be offered to customers in the coming months. Even though Netflix is not officially launched in India, many user are taking advantage of third-party tool to enjoy this service.

In 2011, Netflix started acquiring original content, such as House of Cards, Orange Is The New Black and also some movies. The Indian market has not been conducive to service providers such as Netflix because of rampant piracy and slow internet speeds.