KOLKATA: It is not easy to gain a spot in the ever-expanding streaming map of India. All major international players have set their eyes on the Indian market but Amazon Prime Video has started the innings with a good score. The streaming service has seen good adoption and traction in India on the back of its deep library within three years of its launch. Amazon global CEO Jeff Bezos said earlier this year that they have decided to double down the investment here.

In the second part of APOS 2020, Amazon Prime Video India director and country general manager Gaurav Gandhi and  Amazon Prime Video India content director and head Vijay Subramaniam spoke about its secret to success. 

The Prime members who also subscribe to the video service of the e-commerce giant renew their membership at a higher rate and engage more, as Gandhi said. Earlier, Amazon boss Bezos also stated that Prime Video is performing better in India than anywhere else in the world.

As Gandhi mentioned, even during the crisis period of the last four-five months, it has kept its content flow normal yet. One of its most popular show Mirzapur’s second season is also coming on the platform very soon.

“We are excited about the success of the Prime Video in India. Its adoption is very broad which is making India one of the fastest-growing markets of this service. Everything we look at Amazon is customer backward, just as the case in Prime video. We just look at what customers want and work backward from that,” Gandhi shared one of the main reasons for the success. 

Gandhi attributed the depth of its content library with movies, direct-to-digital releases, premium original content, stand-up comedy as another reason for the success. According to him, Prime Video stands as a truly local service with content in nine languages and user interface in three languages. He also noted that the service focuses highly on experience. Rather than only focusing on access, it also tries to make the process of joining and viewing easier with a seamless experience, on any kind of device and all payment options.

“When we set up the Indian originals team led by Aparna Purohit little over four years ago, we were very clear from the get-go that we have to understand the nuances that are lacking in the kind of stories that customers want to watch and enjoy. Then one truth emerged that high quality cinematically envisioned shows were much sought after,” Subramaniam said. He went on to add that customers were also seeking authentic storytelling. Authenticity, quality of the story, the importance of time, experiments with content have helped the service to build a rich roster of content.

Adding to Subramaniam’s viewpoint, Gandhi said that the variety of content on the back shows like Mirzapur, Inside Edge, Bandish Bandits, Patal Lok gives consumers a different experience not only to Indian users but audience outside the country as well. “One of five customers who watch our Indian originals outside from India,” Gandhi highlighted. According to him, what continues to hold the OTT platform in a good state is its belief in carefully curated content.

Prime Video has always maintained a good library of films, even in local languages. During the first phase of the lockdown, the international streaming giant announced the premiere of seven Indian films across languages with circumstantial changes.

“It was an obvious decision from the beginning that we want to ensure that we provide the latest and greatest films along with a meaningful catalogue. What was important though, it was windowing. We realised that customers of these films, not only they wnt the films but to be able to access them early. We probably pioneered the switching of windows. We disrupted the traditional methodology of theatrical satellite and finally all other windows going from theatrical straight to digital before satellite happened, that was a big meaningful shift for our customers,” Subramaniam said.

Along with other originals and direct-to-digital releases, Prime Video has been able to keep consumers engaged during the pandemic. It has seen very strong growth in the number of content viewed by customers, a number of customers joining and enjoying the service.