STUBBORN ON VISION

If one thought Amazon Prime Video India was just a video streaming service, the company’s recent efforts foraying into film production, launching a video streaming marketplace, venturing into live cricket, in addition to creating diverse and widely accessible content that resonates with cultural moments highlight how the five-year-old service in India is actively shaping the future of media and entertainment in its signature ‘stubbornly flexible’ way By Team BW

WE ARE STUBBORN ON vision. We are flexible on details.” Jeff Bezos had made this comment, articulating the Amazon spirit. This spirit is also evident in the big tech company’s video streaming service, Amazon Prime Video. At a time when Netflix co-founder, president and co-CEO Reed Hastings commented that the lack of success in the Indian market is “frustrating”, Amazon Prime Video India’s bullishness on the market vividly stands out. And numbers indicate this optimism is well placed.

There are over 200 million Prime members worldwide, and India is one of the company’s fastest-growing markets. A 2021 Media Partners Asia (MPA) report shows that in India, Disney Plus Hotstar has 51 million subscribers, Prime Video, which is a pureplay subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) service has 22.3 million subscribers and Netflix that operates in the same space has 6.1 million subscribers. With its different plans and a large member base, Prime Video receives viewership from 99 per cent of the country’s pin codes.

The India Play

The MPA report also indicated that video streaming revenue will grow from its current level of $1.9 billion in 2021 to around $4.5 billion by 2026. While advertising video-on-demand is expected to pull in more revenue than SVOD, the latter will grow from its current $0.8 billion in 2021 to $2.1 billion in 2026.

“OTT will continue to grow in India in 2022. I expect subscription revenue to be a key growth driver and reach $1 billion within a year or two. The emergence of regional products shows the depth of OTT acceptance,” observes Ashish Pherwani, EY India, Media & Entertainment Leader.