“We’re incredibly proud of the fact that our investment in India—in local stories, local storytellers, post-production, VFX, and animation—has created over $2 billion in economic impact in just three years,” Sarandos said. “That’s not just Netflix, that’s India’s creative economy rising.”
This impact, he said, was directly tied to how streaming has reshaped entertainment consumption. “Streaming is a distribution business model. It meets the audience where they are, on their terms, and makes room for stories that otherwise may never find an audience,” Sarandos said.
India’s diverse storytelling landscape, he said, is at a crucial inflection point. In 2024 alone, Indian stories made up 15% of Netflix’s global Top 10 list for non-English titles. At least one Indian title featured in the global Top 10 every week last year, and Indian content reached viewers in more than 80 countries.
Sarandos emphasised that this wasn’t the result of tailoring content to global sensibilities; rather, it was staying rooted in authenticity. “If you try to engineer something to go global, no one will watch it. It gets watered down. The most local stories are often the most relatable. Squid Game wasn’t a fluke—it was Korean through and through,” he said.
The success of Indian titles on Netflix is also backed by staggering consumption figures. Audiences have streamed more than 3 billion hours of Indian content between 2021 and 2024. That translates to nearly 60 million hours a week on average. “Some of our biggest hits globally are stories from India. This is a fan-centric country. And Netflix is for fans,” Sarandos said.
He gave examples of titles like RRR, Delhi Crime, and Khakee: The Bihar Chapter, among others, that resonated far beyond India’s borders. “We’ve seen India leapfrog in the democratisation of film. You no longer have to stand in line at a theatre for a ticket. Streaming has made it possible for people to choose from a range of stories—from obscure indie films to big spectacles—all in one place.”
