Netflix gains 2570% increase in downloads due to StreamFest

Netflix, American video service platform, when reporting its Q5 earnings said it has seen favourable results with its two-day StreamFest in India. The marketing gimmick, Netflix allowed Indian consumers who don’t have a subscription to watch content for free over a weekend in December 2020. According to Apptopia, analytics firm, this strategy gained Netflix 8 lakh app downloads during the first weekend of StreamFest which was a 2570% increase in downloads in comparison to the previous week.

This offer was initially intended for 2 days, 5th and 6th December – non-users had to sign up with their name, email ID or phone number, and password and then acquire access to the content without any payment. But after receiving an overwhelming response, they returned with the same offer from 9th-11th December.

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According to Sensor Tower, market intelligence firm, first-time downloads of the Netflix app increased by 190% from around 5,51,000 on 1st December to about 1.6 million on 2nd, owing to the margins of downloads from Indian users increasing tremendously.

From 1st-6th December, the app witnessed approximately 9 million installs worldwide, more than half of the 16.7 million first-time global downloads it had seen in November.

Greg Peters, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Product Officer said, “It was very evident (during StreamFest) that there’s a lot of interest amongst consumers in India to try Netflix. We had millions of people that had access for a 48-hour period to the service. And now we go through the more difficult part of actually analyzing how that interest through this specific tactic translates into sustained incremental growth. What we see there will inform how we think about how we leverage that tactic again, or how we improve on it, what other places we think it might leverage.” He announced during an earnings call for the December quarter.

There have been 8.5 million paid net additions in Q4, crossing the 200 million paid memberships mark worldwide, said Netflix.

During 2020. the Reed Hastings-owned service added 37 million paid memberships and reached $25 billion in annual revenue, with the assistance of the pandemic that led to people binging and consuming large amounts of content. The Asia and Pacific region was the 2nd largest contributor to net paid addition last year with 9.3 million.

Although Netflix doesn’t disclose region-specific numbers, a report by Media Partners Asia, independent research, advisory and consulting house proving services across media, telecom, sports and entertainment industries in the APAC region, analyzed that Netflix could conclude 2020 with 4.6 million paid subscribers in India. On a larger scale, the service was likely to hold more than 25 million subscribers in APAC by the end of the year with India comprising up to 9% of the platform’s global revenue share in Q3 2020.

The main movies and shows that have stood out for Q4 have been Season 4 of “The Crown” which came up as the biggest season of the show so far with over 100 million member households have chosen to watch it. Some other popular watches were a new release produced by Grey’s Anatomy’s Shona Rhimes, “Bridgeton”, “The Midnight Sky” directed by George Clooney watched by 72 million member households in the first 4 weeks, “Barbarians”, a historical action series based in Germany watched by 37 million member households worldwide, “Sweet Home”, a Korean production horror show watched by 22 million member households and “Alice in Borderland”, a sci-fi thriller from Japan watched by 18 million member households.

Peters said, “We’re improving the ability of our members to tell us what languages they want in terms of the content when they’re browsing, and there could be different scenarios – when you’re by yourself and you’re multilingual, or if you’re in a multi-generational household, then that might shift what titles and languages you watch.” He also added that the company is aiming to expand their methods of payments and other collaborations which could make the service more accessible and better for members to know about and sign up.