Netflix in India: Diagnose Slow Growth and Plan a Tenfold Expansion

You are a product manager at Netflix. The interviewer starts from the view that Netflix has not grown in India the way it hoped, and asks you two things: why you think that is, and what you would do to grow Netflix's business in India tenfold. ### Clarifying Questions - What should grow tenfold: paying subscribers, total viewers including any free or ad-supported plan, revenue, or viewing time? Over what period? - "Has not grown" compared with what: Netflix's own targets, its growth in other countries, or rival streaming services in India? - Which levers are open: lower prices or new plan types, telecom and device bundles, live sports rights, a larger content budget? - Is the whole country in scope, or should the plan focus on particular languages, regions or devices, such as viewers who watch only on phones? ### Part 1 — Explain the slow growth Give your diagnosis of why Netflix has not grown faster in India. Rank the causes and, for each one, say what evidence would confirm or rule it out. ```hint Follow a viewer to the paywall Trace the path from hearing about Netflix to paying for it every month, and at each step compare what an Indian household gets from Netflix with what it already gets free or bundled from other services. ``` #### What This Part Should Cover - Causes specific to the Indian market: willingness to pay, content and language fit, competition from free and bundled options, and distribution and payment friction. - A ranking of the causes, with the data that would test each one. - Whether part of the slow growth reflects Netflix's own pricing and positioning choices rather than only market barriers. ### Part 2 — Grow Netflix tenfold in India Lay out your plan: which audiences you would go after, what you would change in content, pricing, product and distribution, the order you would do it in, and how you would measure progress. ```hint Check where ten times the base could come from Before picking initiatives, ask whether the audience Netflix already serves well is large enough to supply ten times today's base. The answer decides which new audiences the plan has to win. ``` #### What This Part Should Cover - A rough sizing and a reasoned choice of target segments that can plausibly reach the goal. - Initiatives tied to the causes from Part 1, prioritized by impact, cost and time to effect. - A north-star metric with guardrails such as revenue per subscriber, churn and content cost. ### What a Strong Answer Covers - A defined growth goal and time frame before any proposal. - A diagnosis rooted in India's streaming market rather than a generic growth checklist. - A clear line from each initiative back to a diagnosed cause and a target segment. - An honest treatment of subscribers versus revenue, including cheaper plans pulling existing subscribers down. - Risks such as content cost, rival responses and regulation, and how the plan adapts. ### Follow-up Questions - You can fund either a bid for major live cricket rights or a broad push into regional-language films and series, not both. Which do you pick, and why? - A new low-priced plan doubles monthly sign-ups, but revenue per subscriber across India falls. How do you decide whether it was a success? - How would you tell whether new subscribers who arrive through a telecom bundle are actually watching, and what would you do if they are not?