Netflix (NFLX) Expands India Presence With YRF Partnership
Netflix NFLX is keeping no stone unturned to strengthen its position in India. The streaming giant recently entered into a multi-year partnership with a popular production house — Yash Raj Films (YRF) — to create films and series for audiences in India and across the world.
Netflix-YRF’s first project is the four-part series — The Railway Men — starring R. Madhavan, Kay Kay Menon, Divyendu Sharma and Babil Khan, directed by debutant director Shiv Rawail.
The second film, Maharaj, marks the debut of actor Junaid Khan and also stars Jaideep Ahlawat, Sharvari & Shalini Pandey and is directed by Siddharth P. Malhotra, who is well-known for Hichki.
Partnerships to Aid India Expansion
YRF expands the list of partners Netflix has added to its content creator base in recent times. The company recently inked a creative partnership with acclaimed director Neeraj Pandey’s Friday Storytellers LLP, the digital content production arm of Friday Filmworks.
Netflix and Neeraj Pandey have already collaborated for Khakee: The Bihar Chapter, a cop-thriller that was one of India’s Top ten TV shows for more than five months and became one of the longest-trending shows on Netflix in India. Khakee’s second season will be the first series to be released through the latest collaboration.
Netflix’s focus on developing regional content has been a key catalyst in attracting new subscribers. In terms of Indian audience, apart from Khakee: The Bihar Chapter, it has released a plethora of new shows including Friday Night Plan, Guns & Gulaabs, The Hunt for Veerappan, Choona, Kohrra, Lust Stories 2, Scoop, Rana Naidu, Class, Mission Majnu and more.
Upcoming content includes Khufiya, which stars well-known actress Tabu and is directed by acclaimed director Vishal Bhardwaj. Other content includes JAANE JAAN (Sep 21), starring Kareena Kapoor Khan and directed by Sujoy Ghosh, well-known for his thriller movies. The much-anticipated movie, The Archies, is now set to launch on Dec 7.
Netflix’s Prospects Bright in 2023
Netflix’s shares have risen 35.8% year to date, outperforming the Zacks Consumer Discretionary sector’s return of 8.6%. It also outperformed Apple AAPL and Disney DIS but underperformed Amazon AMZN.
Netflix, Inc. Price and Consensus
Netflix, Inc. price-consensus-chart | Netflix, Inc. Quote
Shares of Apple and Amazon have returned 35.3% and 72.3%, respectively, on a year-to-date basis. Disney shares have declined 2.8%.
Netflix, which currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), is expected to benefit from its diversified content portfolio, attributable to heavy investments in the production and distribution of localized, foreign-language content, particularly in India and Korea. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Netflix now expects revenue growth to accelerate in the second half of 2023, driven by the launch of paid sharing initiative in addition to an expanding content offering. However, it anticipates foreign-exchange neutral average revenues per membership to be flat to slightly down year over year due to limited price increases over the past 12 months and immaterial revenues from advertising and paid-sharing.
For the third quarter of 2023, Netflix now forecasts earnings of $3.52 per share, indicating an almost 10% increase from the figure reported in the year-ago quarter. Total revenues are anticipated to be $8.52 billion, suggesting growth of 7% year over year and also on a forex-neutral basis.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Netflix’s third-quarter revenues is pegged at $8.53 billion, indicating 7.6% year-over-year growth. The consensus mark for earnings is pegged at $3.49 per share, up 1.7% over the past 30 days.
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