In 2023, India had the highest percentage of Prime members who streamed Prime Video compared to any other country in the world, said Prime Video & Amazon MGM Studios head Mike Hopkins. Hopkins was speaking at Prime Video Presents, an event where Prime Video India unveiled its content lineup for the year 2024.
The star-studded event took place today, 19 March at Grand Hyatt in Mumbai. Among the long list of shows and films that will be released, were new series as well as new seasons of popular series like Suzhul: The Vortex and Bandish Bandits.
The event was hosted by Hindi cinema director and producer Karan Johar, who spoke to Hopkins about Prime Video’s focus on India, viewership trends for the platform in the country, creating local shows that resonate globally and the most anticipated shows from the platform.
“As you focus on growth, where does India fit into the world of Prime Video,” Johar asked Hopkins. “As we look at the next 250 million subscribers that we’re going to acquire, they are definitely going to come from outside of the United States. 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,” replied Hopkins.
Hopkins shared more interesting facts about India’s viewership:
- For the last several years outside of the US, more people have signed up for Prime in India than anywhere else in the world.
- In any given week in 2023, Indian content was watched in over 210 countries and territories worldwide on Prime Video.
- Indian programming trended in the top 10 on Prime Video worldwide for 43 out of the 52 weeks of 2023.
“We make local programming in many countries around the world, but the core tenet for us is that if it doesn’t work in the country you’re making it, you probably shouldn’t be making it,” said Hopkins. He added that the focus of his platform is to tell authentic stories with creators in a country, such that it resonates with customers in India. He shared that shows like Farzi, Indian Police Force, Poacher, The Family Man, Made in Heaven have worked well in India as well as internationally.
Talking about Prime Video India’s AVOD content platform Mini TV, Hopkins mentioned, “business is doing really well, where we’ve grown four times in overall watch time since 2023.”
Johar asked him about his key content priorities in the near future, to which Hopkins pointed that Prime Video India will bring over 70 shows and films in the next couple of years. Globally, the most anticipated releases will be the new seasons of The Rings of Power and The Boys, as well as the series Fallout, which is based on the highly popular video game of the same name.
From India, the highly awaited release will be Citadel Honey Bunny, the India chapter of Prime Video’s multi-country franchise.