The Silicon Review ^Asia

Internet streaming is the future of entertainment, with numerous players competing for ever-changing market shares. Amid this race, India has emerged as one of the most intensely contested battlegrounds with a population of over 1.3 billion people, nearly half of whom use mobile phones with access to reasonably fast mobile internet speeds. In an effort to appeal to this market, Netflix has introduced a new monthly subscription plan that is exclusively aimed at the Indian market.

The plan is offered at Rs. 199 ($2.8) and would be available only on the mobile platform. The plan restricts usage to only one registered device and only one concurrent stream. Netflix had been testing a lower-priced subscription in India and this new plan could be a decision taken based on data derived from its test.

Netflix continues to face intense rivalry from Amazon and Hotstar, which is a subsidiary of Disney. Hotstar is the current leader in the Indian market, with over 300 million subscribers. That is because it has purchased the rights to live-stream cricket matches, which are akin to a religion in the country.

India has emerged as a lucrative market for mobile services in recent years thanks to the availability of cheap and fast internet and calling. Netflix has even announced the possibility of India contributing 100 million users to its already impressive customer base in the coming years. However, Netflix has a very few original Indian productions in its catalog.