Mumbai: Speaking at a media event to announce its content slate for the country for 2024 senior VP, Prime Video and Amazon Studios Mike Hopkins in a conversation with filmmaker Karan Johar said that for the last several years India has given Prime the highest number of subscribers and signups outside the US. Prime Video is the number one reason why Indians subscribe to Amazon Prime
“You know, for the last several years. We’ve been making a lot of progress in India, and I just have a couple of stats to just explain how things are going here. The first one is that for the last several years outside of the US, more people have signed up for Prime in India than anywhere else in the world. So think about that. That’s pretty good growth.
“The other thing about India is that more people sign up for Prime Video here than for any other benefit. So, more people in the world are signing up for Prime in India outside of the US. And Prime Video is the number one reason they sign up in India. The third thing I’ll say is that in the last year, India had the highest percentage of Prime members who streamed Prime Video than any other country in the world. So that’s why people enjoy Prime Video and Indian teams doing a great job, and I couldn’t be more thrilled to be here.”
He added that that in any given week in 2023, Indian content was watched in over 210 countries and territories worldwide on Prime Video. “So that’s a lot of places watching Indian content. The second thing is that Indian programming trended in the top 10 on Prime Video worldwide for 43 out of the 52 weeks of 2023.”
He said that while the company makes local programming in many countries around the world, the core tenet is that if it doesn’t work in the country you’re making it, you probably shouldn’t be making it. “And so that’s where we start: how can we still tell authentic stories with creators in the country that resonate with customers in India? If we can do that, and it can work outside of the country. We’ve really knocked it out of the park.
“Shows that are working the best for us, both here and internationally, are Farzi, Indian Police Force, Poacher, The Family Man, Made in Heaven, and many more that resonate all over the world. And so we couldn’t be more thrilled with what’s going on here. And so do our customers around the globe.”
He said that as the company looks at the next 250 million subscribers that we’re going to acquire, they are definitely going to come from outside of the US. “And we’re not going to be able to achieve that unless we do a really good job for customers in India as well. So obviously, India is a key geographic area for us. We also believe in the story of India and the growth that’s been happening here over the last several years. In fact, you know, when I think about streaming television and I think of India, what’s remarkable is that I’ve heard many people say this week that more people are streaming TV and film than they’re watching it on linear television on satellite cable. And what’s remarkable about that is that streaming has only really existed for seven or eight years.
“So this is all happening remarkably fast. You know, at Amazon. We’ve used this phrase; it’s always Day 1. I mean, it is really Day 1 in streaming in India and around the world. But India is also a content hub. Right? I mean, people have been making great television and film in India, long before a streaming service launched. And so I’m happy to see so many of our creators and talents here today, and we’re going to get a preview of a lot of the programming that we had on stage a minute ago.”
He also spoke about the importance of technology. “But we’re also an innovation hub. I mentioned before that I’m going down to Bangalore, and I can’t wait to get down there and see all the innovations, they’re planning for our servers and our product because, obviously, the programming is super important. And no one’s going to open up an application just for the product and the tech that’s behind it. But it sure makes it a lot better when the service is easy to use and responsive. And so teams are working hard on that.”
He explained that Amazon definitely has a unique business model. “But for our entertainment business, it really does start with Prime. And when you think of Prime, you think of shopping and shipping. Think of music and gaming. We have a reading service and a variety of benefits with that Prime membership, but of course we have Prime Video as well. You know customers can find their favourite movies and series all under one roof with Prime Video, whether you’re getting entertainment from Amazon, MGM Studios, our local partnerships, or things we’ve licensed around the world. We really start with Prime as our base.
“But I don’t know about you. I’ve noticed over the last few years that as content has been moving to streaming, it’s complicated. People aren’t always sure exactly where to go to get that movie, that TV series, or even that sport, depending on where they are in the world. And so one of the things we’ve spent a lot of time thinking about is how we can put all of that together in one place for customers. Now it’s not easy. You know, we haven’t succeeded everywhere in the world yet in putting all of their streaming content into one application, but we are making a lot of progress.
“And what I mean by that is that we’ve approached streamers all over the world to join Prime Video; you can subscribe to them inside of our application. We’ve also built the world’s largest TVOD store, so more people rent and buy movies on Prime Video than any other store in the world. And then, if you’re not a subscriber or if you don’t want to subscribe to something, We also offer an array of AVOD content where you can watch TV and films without a subscription. We do that for the brand Free V around the world, and here in India, we have Mini TV, which is available on Prime Video and on our retail site. Speaking of Mini TV, our business is doing really well, where we’ve grown four times in overall watch time since 2023.”
When asked by Johar about the future he said, “Yeah, we have a lot going on with teams doing a great job not only here in India but back in the States, where we produce a lot of our global programming. You know, today we have over 200 million Prime members around the world in 240 countries. From an Indian perspective, you just saw the incredible lineup that we put together—over 70 shows and films coming over the next couple of years—and you’ll get to see a lot of those highlighted today. From a global perspective, We couldn’t be more excited to deliver some global tentpole programming this year. We’ve got the second season of The Lord of the Rings, The Rings of Power, coming this year.
We’ve got another season of The Boys coming. We’re super excited about Citadel Honey Bunny, which is a local franchise. Citadel is our global multicountry franchise, and we’re doing another one in Italy as well. We also have a fast-growing young adult audience, and we’re really focused on that audience because, you know, obviously you’re in India as a young country. That’s true in many countries around the world. So we’ve seen success with things like the Summer I Turned Pretty international originals, like My Fault, out of Spain. content like adult animation content, like Invincible and Has Been Hotel. So those are some television series we’re really excited about; on the film front, we have two movies that both actually just premiered at South by Southwest last couple of weeks.
“The first is The Idea of You with Anne Hathaway, and it’s actually set a record for the number of streams on a trailer for a streaming film ever. Just this past week, and then we have Roadhouse, the remake of the Patrick Swayze movie, coming in a couple of weeks. So we’re excited about those. And just today, when I woke up this morning, I opened up my phone, and I saw that we had just announced, because it was kind of leaked, so you know how that goes. And so it went out today… We just announced an ambitious news show from Mr. Beast with 1,000 contestants vying for a $5 million prize. Mr. Beast is aiming to create the largest game show in the history of the world. And we couldn’t be more excited. Take that show out, show that format, and supersize it.
“And then, we have a really big show that we’re super excited about premiering this year called Fallout. This is super special for us, it’s based on one of the greatest video games of all time. And so Fallout is the story of the haves and have-nots of the world, in a world where there’s really nothing much left to have. The series comes to us from Kilter Films, and executive producers Jonah Nolan and Lisa Joy, the creators of Westworld.”
