There are so many reasons for Amazon Prime Video to work well in India, but if you simplify things down to their bare essentials, their primal elements, then it is because it is cheap and it has truckloads of India centric content which will appeal to the masses. Going, by the way, the smartphone market works in this country - when things are cheap, customised, feature-rich and of a decent quality, they tend to work here. Niche and expensive also works, but never gets the mindshare of the masses and struggles to capture the imagination of the public. The iPhone, here, is a good example as its market share is an irrelevant 1 percent. By that token even Netflix is similar; it is not as Indianised as Prime Video and it is grossly more expensive if you think about the benefits of Amazon's ecosystem and e-commerce muscle. Amazon Prime costs Rs 499 per year as of now. This is an introductory offer, and eventually, its price will be Rs 999 per year. This means it is around Rs 41.50 per month and even when the introductory price is vanned off it will be just Rs 83 per month. Netflix is Rs 499 per month. HotStar and Hooq are Rs 200 per month. There's no competition here.
As bad that is for some of the incumbent streaming services in India, it gets worse. Amazon Prime Video is customised for India. It has tie-ups with Karan Johar's Dharma Productions, T-Series and more; some of whom are the huge in the Bollywood circuit. Additionally, Amazon has already announced that it is working with a number of studios in India on Indian original shows and movies. There are reports that it also intends to get exclusive rights for the Indian Premier League (IPL).
To be clear, Netflix also has SRK's Red Chillies, Hooq is more of an aggregator and Hot Star has Star's local content but the issue here is that Amazon is just beginning.
It is the general Amazon go-to-market approach that should scare the incumbents. It normally has a way of bulldozing its way into markets by sheer brute-force. It has already given Flipkart sleepless nights in the Indian e-commerce context and it is currently the biggest player in the market. In the cloud, AWS rules the roost. It is all conquering and even Internet giants like Microsoft and Google have struggled against it.
And when one combines the quality content, the massive price advantage and the attitude to do business with Amazon's ecosystem, which is what essentially Amazon Prime is all about. You have a piquet of cloud services like a drive, photo library, discounts on items on Amazon.com and faster delivery options.
Amazon is trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator, while Netflix is trying to appeal to a more intelligent and affluent audience. Hotstar and Hooq fall somewhere in the middle.
Netflix certainly has the best and most original content, But Amazon, by just bundling Prime Video for every Prime user, is saying "Hey we have lots of video content too, and it's basically free for you. Check it out."And because it does have shows and movies that are in common with Netflix, people are going to say "why the f*ck should I pay Rs 499 for Elementary, when I get it for Rs 42?"
Some will say Netflix, Hotstar and Hooq also don't have impressive shows like "Mr Robot and the Grand Tour" and they pay more and don't get the benefits of Amazon's e-retail ecosystem. Local will be even more important and that's an area Amazon is quite sorted when compared to Netflix, there it will compete more with HotStar and Hooq.
If Amazon gets IPL rights, then it will become a must-have for the cricket junkie just like HotStar. They certainly have the money to get the rights so there's no reason they can't.
To be clear, all the streaming services are very good. Some are better, but with Amazon Prime Video you don't need to ask that compelling question of why do I need it? It is like an impulse purchase and with time, when the content gets ramped up, it will have the potential to become an addiction and that's what should scare the incumbent streaming services and also DTH providers.
Considering there is no Chromecast support in its apps, chances are an Amazon Fire based hardware stick is also on its way to India sooner than later.
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