Amazon Prime makes a bigger play in India ; forays into movie production

Amazon Prime Video is to launch over 40 new titles in Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu, across original series, original movies and co-productions over the next 24 months.

This will be their biggest slate to date in India. The company unveiled its roster at its maiden Prime Video Presents India showcase event in Mumbai on Thursday.

It announced new multi-year licensing deals and co-productions with some of the country’s biggest and most successful studios. Prime Video also announced its foray into original movie production in India with films in Hindi and Telugu, to be released directly on the service.

The service recently completed half a decade in India, and announced that it will more than double its investment in Prime Video India over the next five years.

Executives at Amazon Prime, which also exclusively airs cricket matches played in New Zealand, expressed further interest in airing live sports. International Vice-President, Prime Video, Kelly Day said: “I think we are uniquely positioned to bring live sports in addition to great local content , Cricket is obviously incredibly well-known to people in India. We are excited to deliver that to our customers, too.”

As the auctions for the media rights of the Indian Premier League near, market watchers are closely awaiting bids from top media players. Amazon, Reliance, Disney Star and Zee-Sony are the top contenders for the auctions.

Prime Video Store launched
Amazon has also launched Prime Video Store, its transactional video-on-demand (TVOD) movie rental service in India. Customers can now get early access to the latest Indian and international movies, including popular movies (award winners and franchises) from around the world on a transactional (per-movie) basis. The TVOD rental service will be available to all Prime members, as well as anyone who isn’t a Prime member. Customers will get early rental access to movies across languages and the rental service can be accessed via the STORE tab on primevideo.com and the Prime Video app.

“In the last five years, we have built a strong slate of locally produced content across languages, super-serving the diverse entertainment needs of Indian customers. With increased access and distribution, we have helped these great stories travelin India, and around the world. We have played a key role in helping expand the linguistic palette of Indian customers, thereby, increasing the audience base for creators and talent. Prime Video India today sees viewership from 99 per cent of the country’s pincodes. India continues to be one of Prime Video’s fastest-growing and most engaged locales globally. We are humbled by the love we have received from our consumers and continue to be deeply committed to delighting our customers with great content, while also fuelling the creative economy,” said Gaurav Gandhi, country head, Amazon Prime Video India. The Hindu BusinessLine