Netflix co-CEO Reed Hastings announcement has been long-awaited by thousands of marketers and the advertising industry. When he announced that Netflix is planning to roll out cheaper, advertising-supported subscription plans, many marketers over the world would have reacted with highly positive sentiments. It’s widely known, that they have been pushing the streaming giant for starting advertising globally.

While it’s quite clear that the global subscriber base of 222 million-plus is a key part of the attraction for marketers, the real deal is in the details of the changing media consumption patterns of audiences. Netflix commands an enviable mix of high subscriber bases with high consumption time over many other streaming services in India and across the world. It’s quite safe to say that the company is a major contributor to the global phenomenon of ‘binge-watching.’

What are the other factors that are causing an intense focus on Netflix for advertising?

From Jan 2022 to March 2022 Netflix India saw 12.45 million downloads, with 11.20 million unique installs on Android devices alone. Rapid growth indeed! The growth is driven primarily by quality content, specially developed for Indian audiences. Netflix commands an active user base of over 13.58 million android subscribers with almost 50 minutes per day total session times. In the past month, daily active users have numbered 4.176 million. The company’s strategy to reduce prices in India seems to have gone down well and is certainly another factor in the growth of numbers.

In addition to the numbers, there is a huge variety of shows for every genre, which can allow potential advertisers to target as per need. However, it seems that Netflix's ad-supported programming will not have data tracking and ad-matching, at least to start with. But, many experts feel that it’s just a matter of time.

Most advertisers have been pretty keen to place brands on shows like Sacred Games, The Fame Game, Delhi Crime etc. It seems like they will get a chance to do so soon, probably in the next 10 or 12 months.