Bali: At APOS 2026, Prime Video’s Asia Pacific leadership outlined its long-term regional strategy, highlighting how localized market playbooks, deep content investments, and a unified entertainment ecosystem are shaping the future of streaming across Asia Pacific.
During a session titled “The APAC Playbook: How Prime Video is Shaping Streaming’s Future,” Prime Video leaders shared how the company is navigating one of the world’s most diverse streaming landscapes through country-specific approaches while maintaining a common business vision.
The session featured Gaurav Gandhi, Vice President, APAC & ANZ, Prime Video; Shilangi Mukherji, Director and Head, SVOD Business, Prime Video India; and Keisuke Oishi, Country Manager, Prime Video Japan, in conversation with Vivek Couto, Managing & Executive Director, Media Partners Asia (MPA).
One Business Vision, Multiple Regional Playbooks
Opening the discussion, Gaurav Gandhi spoke about the complexity of serving highly varied markets including India, Japan, Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand.
“We operate a common business model, but we cannot have a common playbook for a diverse region like APAC.”
He highlighted that despite differences across markets, two foundational pillars remain consistent across key geographies.
“There are two important aspects of our business model that are common in our key locales – JP, IN and ANZ. First, we operate as part of the Prime Program, and second, we are an entertainment hub where we make Add-on subscriptions and TVOD available to our customers, in addition to our SVOD offering.”
According to Gandhi, Prime Video’s entertainment hub model is designed to offer customers broader content choice through a single destination experience while supporting partners with distribution and monetization opportunities.
Japan: Building a Streaming Category Over a Decade
Reflecting on Prime Video Japan’s decade-long journey since launch, Keisuke Oishi shared how the platform initially focused on creating demand for subscription video in a market historically dominated by free-to-air television.
“The first, we had to establish an entirely new category of subscription video, in a locale where most of the customers were on free-to-air TV. This required building trust with the customers and establishing a new viewing behavior. The second, was that we needed to build the best diversified mix of content to offer our large Prime member base.”
Oishi explained that Japan’s content strategy today is built around four key pillars — anime, scripted TV and movies, unscripted television, and live sports — supported by a broader ecosystem of add-on subscriptions, TVOD, and pay-per-view offerings.
India Marks 10 Years with Multilingual and Original-Led Growth
Speaking about Prime Video India’s evolution over the last decade, Shilangi Mukherji highlighted the company’s long-standing investment thesis focused on multilingual programming and original content.
“This year we complete 10 years in India. From the get-go our investment thesis has been divided into two parts: Deep understanding of Indian customers and their multilingual content preferences – over 60% of IN customers stream in 4+ languages. So, it was very important for us to have a programming strategy with selection across multiple languages.”
She added, “While programming in overall 10 languages, we continue to invest deeply in Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu along with our strong global English and international content.”
Discussing originals, Mukherji noted, “The second part of our investment thesis has been creating our original content playbook in India. We have ensured that we had a single North Star, which is to create local original content that delights and resonates across diverse customer segments. Today, Prime Video India is home to the most-loved IPs, with 60% of our series having returning seasons, making India Originals program the largest outside the US. We have so far launched 100+ Originals and we have over a 100 more in different stages of development and production.”
Expanding the Entertainment Hub Model
Expanding on the company’s broader entertainment vision, Gandhi outlined how Prime Video continues to scale its partner ecosystem globally.
“We want to offer our customers the widest selection with an easy way to access via one application, one billing relationship, making it much easier for them to access content. It also works for our partners, giving them engaged customer base, deep distribution as well as simplified tech and billing infrastructure.”
He added, “Globally, we have over 600 partners that we work with, 70+ in Japan, 50+ in Australia, and 30+ in India; and these partners see Prime Video as a key part of their distribution strategy; and the expanded selection allows us to super-serve our customers.”
In India, Prime Video is further broadening its proposition through the integration of advertising-supported offerings.
“In India, we are further broadening our offering on Prime Video, including AVOD alongside our existing SVOD, TVOD & add-on subscription offerings. With the integration of Amazon MX Player, Prime Video is now India’s largest streaming service for exclusive originals, bringing together the best selection across our free and paid offerings. It unites Prime Video’s premium audience with Amazon MX Player’s reach, giving creators and advertisers the unmatched scale of Indian streaming, all in one place.”
APAC Positioned as a Strategic Growth and Innovation Engine
Looking ahead, Gandhi positioned Asia Pacific as a major growth engine and innovation centre for Prime Video’s global ambitions.
“APAC is seen as a key driver of growth for Prime Video and a big innovation hub – be it in terms of creating unique offerings for diversified socio-economic segments, like the tiers in India and mobile first plans, as well as building playbooks to serve multi-lingual streamers in the region.”
Sharing his outlook for future growth, he concluded, “Prime Video Japan business has tremendous momentum and we continue doubling down on our content investments there. In India, we are super excited about bringing our AVOD and SVOD businesses together, substantially increasing audience scale by creating a unified service.”
