‘India is now a mature market for elevated storytelling’
In a dynamic over-the-top market, Amazon’s Prime Video India is positioning itself as a full-fledged entertainment hub encompassing original shows, movie rentals and third-party subscriptions. Gaurav Gandhi, who oversees the platform’s business in the APAC and MENA markets, and Shilangi Mukherji, who leads the subscription business in India, spoke to Christina Moniz about the service’s differentiation strategy and its recent entry into ad-supported streaming. Excerpts:
You’re competing with formidable platforms in the OTT business. What will give Prime Video an edge?
Gaurav Gandhi: As a service, we’re positioning ourselves as an entertainment hub and not just a streaming platform. We reach 99% of the pin codes in the country, and that’s not just a vanity number for us. Given the large opportunity in the country, there is enough space for multiple services. As per the latest Ormax report, between Prime Video and Amazon MX Player, we have a large share of the most watched shows in the country. We’re creating a content slate that is diverse across genres and languages, so there’s something for everyone. As long as we continue to create and build on compelling intellectual properties, we will remain among the top preferences, not just for customers in the market but also for creators to come work with us.
Growth potential
What sort of growth has Prime Video witnessed in the past 12 months?
Shilangi Mukherji: India is among the top three locales for Prime Video internationally in terms of the number of hours streamed. Another milestone we’re proud of is that 25% of our customers in the past 12 months were completely new. We also offer ad-on subscriptions with over 25 Indian and global partners.
Our main endeavour is to create a strong local presence in a market with multilingual audiences. Today, we offer streaming in 10 languages and our key focus is on creating access and providing choice. While we cannot share country-specific subscription numbers, we have been able to go deeper into the country in the last year. About 60% of our customers today watch content in four or more Indian languages. We offer multiple tiers of subscriptions including Prime Lite (a more affordable version of the Amazon Prime membership, limited to one mobile device at `799 a year).
Sports is a big draw on OTT platforms. You have NBA and select cricketing content. Can you talk about your plans here?
Gandhi: We offer live sports in different parts of the world and while we continue to evaluate the sports opportunity in India, our offering in this market is built largely on entertainment. We have created over 100 originals, and another 100 more are in production and development. Unlike other streaming services that come from broadcast origins, which use sports and bring in TV content, we have a differentiated content strategy for our platform. We embellish our entertainment catalogue with partners like Fancode for sports, much like we do with other genres.
Ads on platform
Prime Video recently introduced ads on its platform. What has been the response?
Gandhi: We launched ads last month and customers now have the option of choosing an ad-supported streaming plan on their existing membership at 1,499 or they can choose to go ad-free at an additional699 a year. These are still early days but we’re seeing a great response from advertisers, even those that do not sell on Amazon. Some brands who are advertising with us include the likes of L’Oreal, Nestle, HUL, Tata Motors, Coach, Oppo, Apple, Meta, Kohler, Hyundai, Acko Insurance and Dabur, among many others. The combination of Prime Video’s vast reach and Amazon Ads’ full-funnel advertising solutions allows brands to engage with customers and directly connect their streaming TV campaigns to sales outcomes and category growth.
You launched the Prime Video Mobile Edition and Prime Lite in India before anywhere else. Why?
Mukherji: India is unique for a variety of reasons. We launched the Prime Video Mobile Edition and Prime Lite in India before we did it anywhere else, because of the heterogeneous nature of our consumers. The learnings used in building our service for a multilingual audience are being used around the world too. India has been the leading country after the US to get new customers on the Prime Video service annually. Ours was also one of the first countries to celebrate Prime Day as more than just a shopping festival, by introducing special programming. With our localisation in Indian languages, we have seen viewership for international shows and movies in India really take off.
Gandhi: India is now seen as a mature market for elevated storytelling, something that wasn’t a reality eight years ago. Today 25% of the viewing for our original shows and movies comes from outside the country.