Netflix to offer free service to Indian users for a weekend

Netflix to offer free service: Netflix plans to give its Indian users free access to its service for a weekend. This news comes from a TechCrunch report that mentions a top company executive and also states that the one-weekend free access is a part of Netflix's plans to test expanding its reach in India.

Netflix's plan to expand its reach in India comes soon after the company reported slow user growth in the September quarter ending. Recently Netflix also stopped offering its first-month-free complimentary access to the US new users.

Greg Peters, COO and Chief Product Officer at Netflix on the earnings call said, "Netflix wants to experiment with "new ways to lure" potential customers across the world" as per the TechCrunch report.

And giving away free access to Netflix for a weekend in different markets is one of those new ways of luring customers, Peters said.

Netflix has selected India as the first market to test this idea, where it will be competing with Disney+Hotstar, Amazon Prime Video and "technically three-dozen additional services". Peters says they will "see how that goes" from here.

Peters said Netflix plans to give Indian users free access to Netflix for a weekend as it would be a great way to "expose a bunch of new people to the amazing stories that we have, the service and how it works...and hopefully get a bunch of those folks to sign up".

Those who have already subscribed to Netflix won't get this free weekend; this is for people who didn't subscribe yet.

Netflix did not choose India as a test for new ideas for the first time the company has decided to use. Netflix has tested a monthly mobile plan in India in New Delhi before introducing it as a permanent tier across the country last year and then in several other markets.