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Amazon (AMZN) Adds 8 OTT Services to Prime Video Platform

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In a bid to further bolster Prime momentum in India, Amazon (AMZN - Free Report) has introduced the Prime Video Channels Bundling Service on its video platform named Prime Video.

With the help of this service, customers enrolled in the Prime flagship loyalty program can subscribe to multiple global and local streaming services on a single platform. Additionally, there will be a single billing option for all the apps.

Currently, the underlined service is providing access to numerous contents from eight over-the-top (OTT) streaming services, namely discovery+, Lionsgate Play, DocuBay, Eros Now, MUBI, hoichoi, Manorama MAX and ShortsTV.

Content from these OTT services can be streamed with add-on subscriptions.

We believe the recent move will help Amazon in expanding its Prime subscriber base in the country. This is likely to contribute to revenues in the upcoming period.

Growing Initiatives Aid Amazon to Drive Market Prospects

Amazon has been consistently making strong initiatives to attract customers in India.

With the launch of the Prime Video channel service, it strives to create the first-ever video entertainment marketplace in the country which will enable customers in getting more entertainment choices. The OTT Channel partners can benefit from using its distribution, reach and tech infrastructure.

Apart from the latest move, it launched a free video streaming service called MiniTV on its shopping app to gain more viewers in the country.

With these increasing efforts, Amazon has positioned itself well in capitalizing on the prospects of the video streaming market in India.

Per a report by Media Partners Asia, the total online video market of the country is expected to hit $4.5 billion by 2025, witnessing a CAGR of 26% from 2020 to 2025.

Further, a report by RBSA Advisors indicates that the country’s video OTT market is likely to reach $12.5 billion by 2030 from $1.5 billion in 2021.

Additionally, revenues generated in the video streaming segment in India are expected to progress at a CAGR of 20.27% between 2021 and 2025, resulting in a forecast market volume of $2.56 billion by 2025, according to a report by statista.

Competitive Scenario Challenges Amazon

Given this upbeat scenario, Amazon — which carries Zacks Rank #4 (Sell) — faces stiff competition in the online video market and OTT market from global companies like Alphabet’s (GOOGL - Free Report) Google, Netflix (NFLX - Free Report) and Disney (DIS - Free Report) , to name a few.

You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Google-owned YouTube — which offers original content, music and videos free of cost — is consumed mostly by users in India. According to YouTube statistics, it currently has 225 million active users in the country. This remains a major positive for the company.

Meanwhile, Netflix offers a wide variety of award-winning TV shows, movies, anime and documentaries from all across the world. Its recent acquisition of Roald Dahl Story Company for creating a slate of animated TV series remains noteworthy.

Further, Disney+ Hotstar is a premium Indian streaming platform offering local and global entertainment as well as sports content.

Apart from the global streaming companies, Amazon also competes with local and regional players including Sony Pictures, Viacom18, Essel Group-owned Zee Entertainment, Eros Now, Balaji Telefilms and SVF Entertainment that are also making strong efforts to expand their subscriber base in the country.

Sony Pictures-owned SonyLiv, Viacom18’s Voot, Zee Entertainment’s ZEE5, and Balaji Telefilms-owned ALTBalaji are some of the popular video streaming platforms in the country providing web series, original content, movies, and more.

Further, SVF Entertainment-owned Hoichoi is one of the well-known regional streaming platforms. It offers exclusive Bengali original web series and popular Bengali movies.

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