diff --git a/external/kinesis-asl/src/main/java/org/apache/spark/examples/streaming/JavaKinesisWordCountASL.java b/external/kinesis-asl/src/main/java/org/apache/spark/examples/streaming/JavaKinesisWordCountASL.java
index 626bde48e1a86..9edc1a9ade440 100644
--- a/external/kinesis-asl/src/main/java/org/apache/spark/examples/streaming/JavaKinesisWordCountASL.java
+++ b/external/kinesis-asl/src/main/java/org/apache/spark/examples/streaming/JavaKinesisWordCountASL.java
@@ -129,7 +129,9 @@ public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
     String regionName = KinesisExampleUtils.getRegionNameByEndpoint(endpointUrl);
 
     // Setup the Spark config and StreamingContext
-    SparkConf sparkConfig = new SparkConf().setAppName("JavaKinesisWordCountASL");
+    SparkConf sparkConfig = new SparkConf()
+      .setAppName("JavaKinesisWordCountASL")
+      .set("spark.serializer", "org.apache.spark.serializer.KryoSerializer");
     JavaStreamingContext jssc = new JavaStreamingContext(sparkConfig, batchInterval);
 
     // Create the Kinesis DStreams