The end of an era has finally arrived for sitcom fans in India. For several years, the purple walls of Monica’s building and the orange couch at Central Perk Cafe have been the digital nirvana that many aimed to achieve. But a huge transition in the world of online streaming has finally hit. As of December 30, 2025, the popular show Friends has bid farewell to Netflix India.

However, this event has come at a major turning point for millions of subscribers for whom this show has been the main comfort program that they tuned into. Whether this program needed to play as background TV when one was doing the household chores or as a pre-bed routine before sleeping, the presence of the characters Ross, Rachel, and company on the platform seemed imminent.

Reasons Friends Is Not on Netflix India 

Removing the series is not a creative choice but a realistic one because of the complexities of licensing. Online shows like Netflix do not own content aired on the platform. They pay for the privilege of broadcasting the content for a particular time. Friends is under Warner Bros Discovery, and the last multi-year deal between them and Netflix is now completed.

Industry insiders think that this is related to Max, which is a streaming platform that Warner Bros. owns, expanding globally. The firm is taking back its most precious assets in many parts of the world because it wants to enhance its own platform. Even though Netflix has lost this opportunity, these incidents show that studios care about their own platforms over licensing.

Where to Stream “Friends” in India Today

If you are stressing out on where to access your daily dosage of 90s tv shows, there are still some options available. At the moment, the show is still available on Amazon Prime Video India. There have been new notices that seem to indicate the show may be exiting the Amazon Prime Video soon as part of a merger of Warner Bros content.

For those preferring the conventional means of watching, the show is still being regularly aired on Comedy Central India for the traditional viewers. Additionally, viewers keen on making sure that they do not lose the show again are slowly turning to the means of buying content through the use of Apple TV or Google Play services, especially if they are fans of the series and do not want to lose it to the wars between corporations over streaming rights.

Impact on Indian Streaming Behaviors

The departure of Friends, among other popular titles such as The Big Bang Theory, will be a turning point for the Indians. The Indians had viewed Netflix as a “one stop shop” destination to meet their international sitcom demands. Now that the major pillars have either moved or are shortly to move their allegiance to new territories or wait to be available via a “Max” platform within the subcontinent, the Indians will have to explore new destinations.

There have also been complaints on social media about fans who feel frustrated about this change, stating that they would continue their subscriptions just for the comfort shows. This trend may encourage viewers to become more selective in their subscriptions every month or develop a rotation subscription service based on what is available on the platform at any given time.