Netflix Faces Global Outage, Indian Users Take To Twitter To Complain

Streaming giant Netflix has suffered an outage on Thursday, as per outage-tracking website Downdetector.com. Several users including Indian subscribers took to Twitter to complain about the outage.

While there were around 2,000 reports on Downdetector, about 55% of the users reported issues with the website. As per the site, the problem started around 12 PM IST. 

Downdetector shares real time outages and other issues.

However, Netflix’s website or its social media channels have not mentioned anything about the outage yet.

Netflix, which operates in more than 190 countries, added about 7.6 Mn subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2022 and currently has more than 200 Mn subscribers globally. 

Although Netflix has never revealed its subscriber numbers in India, according to its co-CEO Ted Sarandos, India is the fastest-growing market for the streaming service company.

Also read: Netflix’s India Glitch

Speaking at ET’s Global Business Summit, Sarandos said that Netflix witnessed a 30% increase in engagement and watch time and a 25% rise in revenue in 2022 in India.

Sarandos further said that India would see a rise in content investments as watch time and engagement continue to improve. “This year was our most successful in India in terms of growth,’’ he added. 

Netflix has brought many innovations to woo Indian users such as mobile-only plan which was initially priced at INR 199 per month in 2019. Further, in December 2021, Netflix revised the prices to INR 149 along with bringing down other subscription prices as well.

In another instance last month, during the India vs Australia Test Series, streaming service Disney+ Hotstar also suffered an outage. As the second test match between India vs Australia was being played on February 17, many cricket fans expressed disappointments on social media.

In India, Netflix competes with Amazon Prime Video, Zee5, Disney+Hotstar, Voot, JioCinema and MX Player, among others.

According to a Deloitte report, the overall OTT space in India is expected to grow at a CAGR of more than 20% to reach a size of $13 Bn−$15 Bn by 2032. The SVoD market is expected to grow to $2.1 Bn from the current $0.8 Bn over the same period.