Netflix, the US-based video & movie streaming platform, is planning to launch original Bollywood and animation programming aimed at non-US markets, reports The Verge. Reed Hastings, Netflix’s CEO said that creators needed to focus on developing shows for global scale and audiences, since the distribution problem had been solved with the Internet. Hastings added that Netflix would spend $5 billion on content next year, including acquiring talents. In June, we’d reported that Netflix was planning to enter India in 2016, while a Netflix spokesperson told MediaNama that they planned to go global by the end of 2016, including a launch in China, without giving further details about India plans. Netflix is currently present in over 50 countries. The company had added 13 million worldwide subscribers in Q4 2014, its biggest quarter of subscriber gains ever, and has over 60 million subscribers in total, out of which 40 million are in the United States. Global expansion: The company had denied that it was planning to enter the Indian market in 2013. However, it has been expanding globally since 2012 with launches in Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Norway. Netflix provides exclusive content from partners to its subscribers. It’s worth noting that the company launched in Australia and New Zealand in March this year. It also launched in Portugal, Italy and Spain in October 2015 and was planning a Japan launch later this year, to offer a number of Japanese TV shows and films, plus Netflix original series such as Marco Polo, Sense8,…
