After Amazon Prime’s successful launch, they are now gearing up to launch their long awaited video service, Prime Video, by tieing up with the Dharma Productions. This deal will include 4 upcoming movies and also, Prime Video subscribers will get unlimited access to previous Dharma Production’s movies.
These upcoming films include – ‘Ae Dil Hai Mushkil‘ starring Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Ranbir Kapoor and Anushka Sharma, ‘Ok Jaanu‘ and ‘Badrinath Ki Dulhania‘. Also, Prime Users will get an unlimited streaming access to Dharma Productions movies, which include Kapoor & Sons, Brothers, Shaandaar, Gori Tere Pyar Mein, Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani, Student of the Year, Kal Ho Naa Ho, and Agneepath.
As Apoorva Mehta, CEO of Dharma Productions said–
“We have kept a close eye on the explosion of digital media, and the increased consumption trends of Bollywood content on Video-On-Demand and OTT Platforms. We are confident that partnering with a credible brand like Amazon will go a long way in ensuring that our content will not only be seamlessly streamed, but will also see a huge demand from users of Prime Video.”
Previous Tie-ups
Recently, Amazon tied-up a content deal with Vishesh Films (owned by Mukesh Bhatt) for their entire films and TV catalog. They also signed up with Excel Entertainment (owned by Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani) for their web series called ‘PowerPlay’. To bring some more original TV content, Amazon also brought directors Vishal Bhardwaj and Vidhu Vinod Chopra for Prime Video exclusive series.
Can Outtake Netflix
Amazon is investing a huge amount of money (rumoured at $300 million ) in producing and acquiring local content in a bid to stock up its library before making a splashing debut in India.
Also, Amazon is on the spree to acquire as mush content as they can, which can out-take Netflix. Since, Netflix, even though has a first mover advantage, is still behind the number of content on the platform – having just 916 movies and 368 TV shows (compare to 4,042 movies and 1,138 TV shows in the US).
Currently, Amazon Prime includes, a starter pack of Rs.499 a year for same or next day delivery on orders and 30-minute early access to lightning deals. For the premium, it goes till Rs.999 per year. In future, Amazon might include ‘Prime Video service’ available in this package.
According to a report published by Deloitte, Digital Video subscription market is estimated to be around Rs.35-40 billion by 2020 at a monthly ARPU of 60 with ~10% paid penetration among online video users. Comprising of 5-7% of the overall digital ad spend by 2020.