Netflix USA vs Netflix India - what's the difference?

When this content streaming giant started out in the 90s, it has a simple and effective selling point to deliver premium entertainment directly to home users. Thanks to the infinitely rapid spread of the internet in the past decade, Netflix was able to take its model not just online across the United States, but open its wings and go international. Spanning across the entire world except for Syria, North Korea, and Crimea due to US sanctions, Netflix has become synonymous with premium online entertainment.

Despite the service being a worldwide phenomenon, the amount of content available across the service is region-specific. You’ve already seen true Netflix fans discuss the possibility of unlocking Netflix USA in India, and there’s a good reason to do so. Let’s find out what makes Netflix USA and Netflix India so different in the first place.

Movies: Netflix USA > Netflix India

While it is almost impossible to put the content of Netflix under a microscope with thousands of movies and TV shows, there is some number-crunching we can do. To start off with movie titles, the Netflix movies library in the United States consists of 4500+ movies at an average, with the number growing and even declining sometimes.

The catalog of Netflix movies for the Indian region is restricted to just 500+ movies in comparison to the massive catalog of Netflix USA. There are multiple reasons for this, which includes copyright and language restrictions, content exclusivity and others. But you have to take into account what Netflix India offers that Netflix USA simply doesn’t.

In order to focus on the regional masses, Netflix has adopted thousands of Indian movies, with languages spanning across Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Telugu, and Tamil. Since these Indian regional movie titles are not available anywhere else in the world, it does give Netflix India an advantage over Netflix for Indian viewership.

TV Shows: Netflix USA > Netflix India

Thanks to its in-house production of Netflix Original content, the entertainment streaming service rules the chart with 1150+ TV shows on the Netflix USA roster at the moment. In comparison, you would expect an equal amount of TV shows to be available on Netflix India, since there aren’t too many regional TV shows available, with the exception of some Pakistani soap dramas of course.

However, there is also a stark difference in the number of Netflix USA TV shows that are available for viewing in India, with the figure being just around 530+ at the moment. This means that as a Netflix India user, you miss out on some of the best TV shows of all time like F.R.I.E.N.D.S, Modern Family, The Flash and many others.

Price: Netflix USA = Netflix India

Considering the massive currency divide between the two nations, you’d expect the streaming service subscription to be cheaper in India, especially when you look at the difference in the content library. With the Netflix USA Standard subscription costing $7.99 and the same on the Indian Netflix platform costing 500 INR (approximately $7.70), there isn’t much of a price gap between the two.

Winner: Netflix USA

As a Netflix user in India, users hoped to enjoy the best of western entertainment with top Netflix Original movies and TV shows at a fairly premium price. While it is quite pleasant that Netflix is keen on offering regional-specific content to woo the local viewership, it comes as a sacrifice of thousands of movies and TV shows that are offered on Netflix USA. Though, there is a trick to let you watch Neflix USA content from India.

On average, Netflix India has less than 12% of the streaming content available on Netflix USA, despite costing almost the same. Since this ratio isn’t going to change anytime soon, it might be time to take things into your hands and fire up a VPN to unblock Netflix USA through your Netflix India subscription.