Netflix in India Product

Product mix

Strengths and Weakness of Product

Product Life Cycle Management and New Product Development

Brand Name, Brand Image and Brand Equity

The Augmented Product

Price

Pricing Objectives

Pricing Method

Pricing Strategy

Discounts and Allowances

Price Elasticity and Customer Sensitivity

Break Even Analysis at Various Prices

India is one of the emerging markets for digital business. It is also a lucrative market for companies dealing in digital content. It is crucial for many digital content companies to have a presence in India given the population of the country and the growing number of first time users of internet in India. This market holds great prospects for future growth.

One of the major companies to provide digital content is Netflix which has been announcing updates for its online platform and has shown that it intends to chalk out plans to be able to penetrate and approach consumers in the high-growth markets.

Some of the innovations that the company has come up with include carrier billing and in-app subscription sign-ups. These are verticals that have been announced by the company.

With its eyes on the lucrative Indian digital content market, Netflix has given indications of entering India and company authorities have announced their intent of creation of Bollywwod content -- Bollywood is the acronym given to the Indian Hindi movie industry, the largest in India.

These are signals that the company is indeed serious about attempting its entry into India and the capturing of the Indian digital content market.

There are two major issues present in the digital market in India according to experts. These are low credit card penetration, and the fact that most new consumers will be 'mobile first' internet users. These are indeed serious issues in India and for Netflix as, according to the most recent data, the credit card and bank account penetration in India is just around 2% of the population. Netflix has tried to address both the issues through announcement of its plan for India. For example, the Carrier billing is a very easy and apt solution for the problems as discussed above. The company is banking on the data that 71% of the people in India using smart phones are used to topping their airtime balance. Netflix authorities claim that enabling the consumers is the key to success in its possible venture in India (Netflix.com).

Further the carrier billing method can also be a very good too for consumer acquisition in India as this process if somewhat different from those in the developed economies. Partnerships with mobile service providers could be a very strong marketing proposition for Netflix as the mobile service providers are used to managing billions of impressions daily through more than 20 customer-facing channels they operate. These range from SMS and top-up notifications to websites and call-centres.

To start off Netflix could think about acquiring Bigflix, the Indian version of Netflix. This company has been active India over the last few years and in manner similar to Netflix, allows the user to stream and download high definition digital content against subscriptions. The subscription charged by the company is around Rs. 250 per month. The company services are primarily limited to a section of Bollywood movies and some movie sin the regional languages in India. However the company offers its services across all devices such as desktop, tablets, smart phones and connected TVs (Bigflix Watch Online Movie).

There are other features like the movie on demand ecosystem spanning across product, distribution and content. The company intends to replicate Netflix in India and hence is a competitor for Netflix. Through its extensive HD quality movie library, Bigflix offers access to Hindi, English and several Regional language movies to users. The collection of movies for Bigflix is not as huge as Netflix with just around 2500 movies, but the users are able to watch the movies without any ads or breaks in between.

Hence it is clear that Netflix needs to acquire Bigfix for a start in the Indian market. This would not only provide the company with a ready user base but also provide instant rights and access of around 2500 Indian movies. When coupled with the rich bouquet of English and other foreign language movies that the company already posses, the combination would be very impressive.

Product

Product mix

Something that is produced in order to satisfy customers is called a product (Kotler, Philip, and Gary Armstrong, 51).

The product mix and range of the Netflix...

While the most common form of product is the movie library that users can access online using any of the devices like smart phones laptops, tabs and even connected TVs, the company also offers users access to thousands of popular television shows. These are accessed against a fee through online streaming. Apart from this Netflix also offers mail-in DVD where the company also mails DVDs to customer's home on demand against a fee. This has given the company a competitive edge over their rivals. The product range can be accessed through three forms of subscription plans by the users. They are online streaming only, DVD's which exclude online streaming and the DVD in addition to the streaming. The last product was introduced in 2012 (Netflix.com).
Apart from these, the product range is diversified on the basis of picture quality such as high definition or non-high definition and the number of screens that one can watch the content on simultaneously (Netflix.com).

Thus the company offers both tangible and intangible products to its users. The mail-in DVD's is a tangible product as the user can physically see and touch it while the online streaming of movies and TV shows is intangible as it cannot be felt or touched or made contact with.

Moreover the products are easily available as intangible products of the company are available on Xbox, Playstation, and Wii which are, on the other hand, easily available. Since the online steaming service is also adaptable to the smart phones, hence the company products are available anywhere and everywhere provided that the device is connected to the internet (Varadarajan).

Strengths and Weakness of Product

Strengths

The primary advantage for Netflix is that is does not have to produce the product themselves. The products -- the movies and the TV shows, have already been produced by someone else. In that sense, this is a big strength of the company products that they are already developed. The work of Netflix is to simply become a distributor, acquire the products through acquiring of rights of the product and take the products to the people.

The advantage of the intangible product -- the online streaming of the movies and the TV shows is that they can be accessed from anywhere and everywhere provided that there is an internet connection. Users simply have to log on to the company websites, go to the product library for movies or TV shows, choose the product, make the payment and watch the movie or TV show.

Another strength of the product is that the products can be downloaded or streamed in multiple devices. The films and the TV shows can be downloaded or watched on devices such as PCs, laptops, smart phones, tabs and even the connected TVs. This reduces the chance of handicap of video adjustability of the product to any particular type of device. Hence anyone anywhere with an internet connected device can access the products of the company (Varadarajan).

In terms of the quality of the content -- movies and TV shows, the company can boast of a substantial collection. The tie ups with the various production companies -- Disney for examples, given allows the company access to very popular films. The TV shows that the company offers to users are pretty good and includes hit original productions like "House of Cards."

The collection of DVDs for the mail-in DVD business is also impressive.

Weaknesses

The primary weakness of its products is the medium itself. Since the sale of products would depend on the quality of the internet connection, the company is dependent on others for its business. A slow internet connection -- which is problem in many places in India and similar developing markets for example, would hinder its sale even if the products are good and are in demand. The company does not have any control over the internet quality and its speed and hence might suffer due to a faulty network.

Controlling the inventory is a problem for the product especially in the mail-in DVD business where delays in delivery can leave customers huffing. Moreover, the some DVDs might get broken or lost during delivery. This can result in the company losing some customers despite the product being excellent.

Renting of Netflix products is a problem as a customer needs to rent one before renting another. The products of the company are also not suited for customers who watch one or two movies a month and for such customers, the costs can be too high.

Product Life Cycle Management and New Product Development

The product lifecycle of Netflix depends on two factors. The fist is the demand and the continuing popularity of a particular content. While here can be demand for new content -- new movies and…