Mumbai: Amazon Prime Video is all set to launch its biggest content slate in India. The streaming major on Thursday announced over 40 new titles in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu, across original series, original films and co-productions that it plans for over the next twenty-four months.
Prime Video also announced its foray into original film production in India with films in Hindi and Telugu, to be released directly on the servics and new multi-year licensing deals and co-productions with some of India’s biggest and most successful studios.
The service recently completed five years of service in India, and announced that it will more than doubling its investment in Prime Video India over the next five years.
The upcoming Amazon Originals will enthral customers by offering a wide gamut of genres, ranging from cutting-edge thrillers, high-octane action, engaging dramas to light-hearted comedies and heart-warming romances. The service is augmenting its original programming for young adult audiences, and also exploring genres like supernatural and horror for the first time in its India journey. Furthermore, Prime Video is enhancing the scope of its unscripted series catalogue to explore genres like biographies, true-crime and investigative docu-dramas.
Prime Video aims to be a home for talent. It is working with a wide set of diverse creators with unique, cinematic voices from across the country. Almost 70 per cent of the new upcoming titles will feature new talent - both in front of and behind the camera.
After launching Prime Video Channels last year, in another significant step towards creating a video entertainment marketplace, Amazon also launched Prime Video Store, its transactional video-on-demand (TVOD) film rental service in India. Customers can now get early access to the latest Indian and international films, including a rich catalogue of popular films from around the world on a transactional (per-film) basis.
Prime Video’s customer footprint is set to expand even further as 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 and the Prime Video app, said the statement.
Commenting on this, Amazon Prime Video India country head Gaurav Gandhi said, “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 travel far and wide in 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 pin-codes. India continues to be one of Prime Video’s fastest-growing & most engaged locale 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,” he added.
Speaking about the multi-pronged approach on expanding the movies segment in India, Gandhi added, “In tune with our vision to become the most-loved entertainment hub, we have steadily innovated in the way we offer movies to our consumers, from offering films in a post-theatrical early-window to direct-to-service premieres bringing the most anticipated films to consumers’ living rooms and preferred devices. We are deeply committed to grow this segment further and are going bigger on our film licensing partnerships, expanding our co-production initiatives and are now excited to announce our foray into original movies. In addition to our investments in great content, we are super excited about the launch of our TVOD film rental service, that will not just give even more expanded reach to these films but also give customers more choice in how they want to access and watch content.”
Elaborating on the expansive content slate, Amazon Prime Video head of India originals Aparna Purohit said, “Our mission has been to tell compelling, authentic and rooted stories that not just connect with audiences in India but resonate with audiences across the world. We feel humbled that the characters of our shows and films have inspired new archetypes, blazed a new trail, and in fact, become a part of the cultural zeitgeist. As we move forward, we are excited to partner with some of the most prolific creators to bring forth powerful stories across different formats, genres and languages for our customers. We are confident that our upcoming slate of shows and films will transcend all barriers of language, nationality or formats.”
