India’s ‘Netflix’ slumps
October 26, 2015
Shares in Eros International Media, the Bollywood studio and provider of the self-styled “Netflix of India”, crashed 20 per cent on fears over accounting policies and growth rates in its streaming business.
Eros was backed by investors hopeful that India’s largest film studio by revenue could transform itself into a Netflix-style media platform, tapping a potentially huge market of film-goers.
The group has also been involved in talks with potential strategic investors including Amazon, ahead of the arrival of Netflix itself, which is set to launch in India next year.
But last week Wells Fargo downgraded the stock casting doubt on revenue accounting, notably in the United Arab Emirates, in addition to the user numbers it claimed for Eros Now, its streaming platform, reports the FT.
Eros claims it has more than 30m users for the streaming service, which gives access to its large back catalogue of Bollywood movies. Its popularity helped to ramp up investor excitement over digital revenues, doubling the group’s stock price in the year to October 2015.