Netflix's India business posted its strongest quarter yet, with viewing hours up 24% year on year during the September quarter and revenue up approximately 18–20% on a foreign-exchange-neutral basis, according to Reuters' coverage of the company's third-quarter shareholder letter.
The company reported its largest-ever quarterly paid net additions in India, supported by its content slate and a transaction-based loyalty bundle with Flipkart, the shareholder letter says. Viewing hours per member grew by low-to-mid single digits in the market — a sign that growth is coming from both new subscribers and deeper engagement, not just sign-ups.
The India surge stands in sharp contrast to the company's softness in the United States, where co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters told investors that viewing has stalled — a slowdown they tied directly to the shake-up of Netflix's content leadership, according to Variety's report of the earnings call. Netflix also cut its global 2026 advertising forecast by about $300 million to roughly $2.7 billion, citing a slower-than-expected rollout of ad products.
The results underscore why Asia-Pacific has become the industry's most strategically important growth region. While Netflix contends with market maturity and short-form competition from YouTube and TikTok at home — pressures Evercore ISI analysts cited in explaining the company's slowed growth — international markets like India are delivering the subscriber and engagement momentum the domestic business has lost.
Disney's appointment of Carol Choi to lead its own Asia-Pacific business this week reflects the same calculation, as does JioHotstar's continued international expansion into Nepal. For Netflix, which stopped reporting subscriber numbers in 2025, India is now doing much of the heavy lifting in the growth story it tells Wall Street — and the one bright spot in an otherwise turbulent quarter of layoffs, executive exits and a sliding share price.