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Comment by vijaybritto | Hacker News Reader

"Indian consumer market remains value-conscious" - this is the most important point here. But 200rs per month too seems very expensive. I'm not sure how this will play out. Let's see.

Hotstar has been killing it. They have the massive advantage of streaming live sports, especially IPL and other cricket matches.

I think Netflix will become the next Apple in India. They gotta think like an Indian company and not as an American company!

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I agree, I think the government guaranteed wage is only 100rs per day if doing roadwork or similar. (Not sure the correct term).

I believe in the Kolkata superb area, many people with a bachelors or equivalent only make $60-80 usd a month. (4000-5500rs)

Of course, there are many many many people who make much more.

If I think of what it costs to eat out in the US, and what it costs to eat out in India... 200rs is probably more equivalent $15-40 dollars in the US. For buying power.

Examples: Throw pillow that would be $30 USD, is 150rs, or 315rs at someplace like Anokhi.

Streetfood that would be ~$10 in the us is probably around 70rs ? But that’s even a hard comparison, as I’ve been able to snack for 20rs, but not a full meal.

A knife I bought to open coconuts, that isn’t pretty, but would probably be $25-$35 in the US, was 325rs, and I probably could have gotten it cheaper.

Where are you quoting these figures from? The minimum wage is considerably higher than Rs. 100 per day in most parts of India.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_Wages_Act_1948

Rs. 200 is not a big amount. Of course, the real comparison will be with respect to the cable TV rate, and the Netflix rate might not be low enough to be a better option.

From what you posted:

“Lack of awareness: Many citizens are not aware of the existence of a statutory provision that ensures a minimum wage rate. "80% of workers earn less than INR 20/day or less than half of government stipulated minimum wage rate (rural INR 49 and urban INR 67)”.[2] On certain instances of doubt among workers on existence of a minimum wage rate, officials have denied claims of any statutory act or legislation.[11]”

“42% of all wage earners in India receive wages below the national minimum wage floor rate.[62]”

“In Mumbai, as of 2017, the minimum wage was Rs. 348/day for a safai karmachari (sewage cleaner and sweeper), but this was rarely paid.[5]”

>Rs. 200 is not a big amount. sorry thats really ignorant. It is not a big amount for the privileged people.

I think this is very correct. I asked some friends who are Indian and currently in India, and they replied with:

“On this I would say that it will be expensive for the maximum population of India as the Percentage of working class people earning good is not on the positive side. Many people still fall under BPL and I as an Indian citizen can absolutely tell you about this thing that we people totally browse it of the web and find things for free even the Netflix originals. This is something not good or praiseworthy but yes most people do that.”

Of course it's expensive for the majority of the population, but that's not the target market here. India has a population in excess of 1b, even 1% of that market would be a good acquisition for Netflix.

These are some wild numbers. Please recheck. I don't know anyone that can survive in Calcutta on $70 a month. Out of college, people earn about $350-$650 dollars on the monthly.

I will recheck. I actually pulled them off an internal document from an NGO my employer partners with. I’ll have them recheck the data that they provided. (For income data )

But hotel front office:

https://www.indeed.co.in/m/viewjob?jk=169b33826c0225f4&from=...

$188~ USD a month.

But looking around police make ~600 USD a month,

And I’m wondering if the data isn’t as good as it was supposed to be. Because looking on indeed the lowest end seems to be 10000rs

As a rule of thumb, I take the amount in rupees and multiply with 6 to get the equivalent in Dollars.

As an X role in a company if you make 10k per month in India, then working for the same company as X in US, you will likely make 60k.

This is mostly based on salaries info that i have but it gives me a good yardstick for mental models. This also conveniently fits with exchange rate which fluctuates between 55 to 70 INR = 1 USD.

By this yardstick, throw pillow that would be $30 USD will be around $5 (Rs. 300) in India, subject to local revisions.

I mostly use this when I need to roughly calculate how much money I should take with me while traveling.

I have the same rule. Although the actual multiplier I use is 5 based on my experiences. ymmv.

Not sure they are killing it unless they make more from online subscription than cable. Lots of my friends and I have unsubscribed from cable and brought Hotstar subscription. So now they have to support multiple channels (online/cable) for a disjoint subscriber base. And it is only a matter of time when Netflixes, Facebooks and Amazons start bidding for live sports in India as well [1]

[1] https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/44396151

They are the leaders in this domain, thats what I meant by killing it Capturing customer base is the first step in any new venture's plans right? Not sure how they've planned their strategy but they streamed 25million concurrent connections during the super over in CWC. If the big ones start bidding then we'll see how it goes. But for now, star is way ahead. Also 300million users when the country is making its transformation to fully mobile and VOD is massive!

>Hotstar has been killing it. They have the massive advantage of streaming live sports, especially IPL and other cricket matches.

But is there anyway to cast your mobile streaming videos from such apps on TV? I tried raspicast but it only works for YouTube not for any other app like Zee5, or hotstar or Amazon prime video.

Is there anyway to make it work on TV? Even if it requires rooting android device or smth.

Chromecast and Firestick work with literally all the streaming services that we have available in India

But is that the only alternative? Why is it not possible to do it with the plain old hardware like raspberry pi?

Maybe because Raspberry pi is not a mass market hardware. Also how many in that small population are using it to watch streaming videos?

Raspberry pi is for hardware enthusiasts and not for end consumers. Pi 3b costs 3000Rs. A Nokia 1 phone(android) costs 4000Rs. What are people gonna buy in these two?

Well, people can also have old laptop or desktop pc which is same as having a raspberry pi.

That still involves more friction than just casting to a Chromecast or Fire stick

Yeah but hotstar targets mobile phones and latest web browsers. If you can run any latest browser in your Pi then you should be fine

I have an Android TV with hotstar insalled. So I didnt try any of this. Casting works if you have chromecast installed in the TV by default or if you had purchased separately.

>> I think Netflix will become the next Apple in India. They gotta think like an Indian company and not as an American company!

Whats the difference between thinking like an Indian company vs an American company? You got me curious.

>> Hotstar has been killing it. They have the massive advantage of streaming live sports, especially IPL and other cricket matches.

I take it they are funding it with ads? Do you think they will fund everything with ads long term or are they just buying time to build market share before converting to a subscription model?

Disney owns Hotstar, so they've got multiple avenues to fund/subsidize it.

>> Whats the difference between thinking like an Indian company vs an American company? You got me curious.

To a first order of approximation, Most american products are tailored towards "Ease of use", "Batteries included" style. All most all Indian products are focused on claiming cheapest cost at the cost expense of convenience.

The difference is usually in the kind of customer you wish to attract - in India companies tend to focus on lower cost to acquire customers, and this works just because of the sheer size of the country. You have cities with populations in the millions, which have a sizeable population with access to high quality internet services. In the US, the focus would be on higher margins per customer, both because the total number of available customers aren't as high as in India, and an individual customer can afford a lot more than in India.

American companies don't always go for the lowest common denominator and the public quickly associate them with luxury. Apple is a luxury brand here and they refuse to price their products that are reachable to the masses. They sell inferior products compared to the other products in the market currently. For ex apple thinks people will buy 2 year old iPhones at higher cost than one plus 7.

Netflix is doing the same with this 480p vids for 199rs.

Yes hotstar shows ads but they aren't a startup. They are the online branch of the massive star group

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