One quick thing: Weeks after he said Wipro fired 300 employees for moonlighting, chairman Rishad Premji mentioned today that the company fired one of its top 20 leaders in 10 minutes for a 'huge integrity violation'.

• While many applauded Wipro for taking a tough stand on integrity, a few were baffled with Premji’s second employee-related disclosure on a public platform.

In today's newsletter:

• Netflix gets a Darlings boost
• Festive offers that have a Chinese connection
• Tata-backed Cult eyes IPO

Bonus: How has 2022 shaped India's fintech narrative. Tune in as we try to decode it with an ace panel (Also, available on demand later!)

After a rough six months, Netflix (and the video streaming industry) can finally breathe a sigh of relief.

"Thank God we're done with shrinking quarters," Netflix co-CEO Reed Hastings said as the company snapped a streak of subscriber losses in the first six months of this year. 

• The service also surpassed internal forecasts and Wall Street expectations to add 2.4 million paid members in the third quarter, taking its overall base to 223.1 million. 

The Asia Pacific region, which includes India, remains the biggest subscription driver for Netflix. It added 1.4 million paid members in the region, taking its base to 36.2 million subscribers for the region in Q2 2022. 

Netflix's average revenue per member declined by 3% year-on-year in Asia Pacific, partially driven by lower per-member revenue in India. The higher average revenue per member in Australia and Korea somewhat offset this decline.

A strong slate of fresh content in Q3 also likely helped Netflix's subscriber growth. This includes a new season of Stranger Things, one of the most popular television series in the world, that recorded a staggering viewership of 1.35 billion hours in the first 28 days.

• Alia Bhatt-starrer Darlings also found a mention in the company's shareholder letter. With a viewership of 33 million hours in the first 28 days, the movie "launched to rave reviews and huge fandom in India", Netflix said.

Netflix plans to launch a lower priced ad-supported plan in 12 countries in November, marking a major shift in the company's stance against advertising on the platform.

It also plans to crack down on password sharing more broadly from early 2023, as the streaming major looks to improve its monetisation.

• After allowing users to transfer their Netflix profile to new accounts, Netflix now plans to let subscribers create sub-accounts if they want to pay for family or friends

Online shopping has witnessed a major uptick this festive season with e-commerce players offering attractive discounts to consumers. 

But this has also caught the attention of scammers who are now targeting Indian users with phishing campaigns, involving Chinese websites, that are tailored around festive season and online shopping. 

The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) warned users of a similar campaign that’s underway, which aims to steal your sensitive details such as bank account details, credit card number, OTPs and so on.

The agency has warned that users are being targeted through fake messages on social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp and so on.

• The messages contain a link that leads users to Chinese websites (with the domain .cn), and other websites with the extension including .top and .xyz

• On the website, attackers entice users to give up sensitive information and then falsely claim that they won a prize.

In their advisory, the agency urged users not to browse untrusted websites or click on untrusted links.

• To exercise due caution before clicking any link in a message

• Search for an organisation’s website when in doubt

• Keep personal information private

Go deeper

Just like Third Wave Coffee, fitness chain Cult.fit is part of all the ‘Bengaluru tech bro starter packs'. You will very likely be disowned if you don’t have a subscription.

Cult.fit, which started creating waves from 2016, was badly hit during the pandemic. The startup even changed its business model and resorted to layoffs. 

Cut to 2022, and Cult.fit has made quite a comeback — thanks to Tata’s backing.

The Mukesh Bansal-led fitness chain is gearing up for a public market debut in the next 12-18 months.

• It now operates two businesses– fitness and e-commerce.
• Revenues have grown by 50% from pre-Covid days, and it has turned operationally profitable, the company claims.

More deets here

• Japan plans to further loosen cryptocurrency rules by making it easier to list virtual coins as early as December.

• Over 3 million Reddit users have created crypto wallets to date, since its launch in July 2022. Of this, about 2.5 million wallets were created to purchase NFT avatars that can be used as profile pictures on the platform, according to its chief product officer Pali Bhat.

We often ponder on what the near and distant future of any particular thing or topic will look like.

A new Netflix documentary from The Verge aims to provide answers for some of these questions. As the company says the show is about everything, right from subjects like dating, gaming, dogs to skyscrapers and life after death.

Watch the documentary

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