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Amazon Prime Video’s Roy Price On Localising A Global Service

Amazon Prime Video’s Roy Price discusses plans for the Indian market.

Roy Price is the global chief at Amazon Prime Video and was recently in India (Source: Amazon)
Roy Price is the global chief at Amazon Prime Video and was recently in India (Source: Amazon)

Roy Price, head of global content at Amazon Prime video, is accustomed to zipping around the world. But even for someone like him three trips to India over a four month period is a lot. The frequency of Roy’s India’s visits since the launch of Amazon Prime Video in December 2016 is testament to the importance of the Indian market to the tech behemoth. India is only one of 241 countries where the company has launched its OTT video service.

Price’s latest visit to Mumbai, earlier this month, was to announce the company’s partnership with Indian filmmaker, Kabir Khan. This will be the 18th such Amazon India original show announced in the last four months.

Roy Price, Head of Global Content at Amazon Prime Video and Filmmaker
Kabir Khan at the  announcement of the new Amazon Original
Series in India (Source: Amazon)
Roy Price, Head of Global Content at Amazon Prime Video and Filmmaker Kabir Khan at the announcement of the new Amazon Original Series in India (Source: Amazon)

In India, Amazon Prime Video may be well ahead of its global rival Netflix in terms of subscribers but it has a long way to go before it catches up with the likes of Hotstar and Voot. At the start of the year, Hotstar had over 63 million subscribers and Voot had more than 13.2 million subscribers, according to a recently released report by KPMG India & FICCI titled “Indian Media and Entertainment Industry Report 2017”. Amazon Prime Video has over 9.5 million active subscribers in India, whereas Netflix has a little over 4.2 million, the report said.

BloombergQuint caught up with Price in Mumbai to talk about the Indian content market and the company’s plans.

Edited excerpts below.

Amazon Prime Video launched its services in December 2016. The service is available in over 200 countries the world over. What was it like setting it up in India?

Well, you know what we say is you can have a global service but there are no global customers. There are only local customers. Everybody lives in a particular place, comes from a particular culture, language and so we have a lot of shows that we have everywhere. But, on top of that we have licensed a lot of Indian movies in particular. Sultan and Joker have been doing well recently and now we’re working on Indian original series which will be important for the future.

Is localisation key when you approach a market like India? Because in terms of international content for the Indian market, you’ve also announced a deal with Paramount Pictures…

Yes, there are some things which have international appeal and we have a lot of those things, including some of our Amazon Studios Originals that we’ve produced out of Amazon Studios in LA. But, you really have to pursue what we call a “multi-local strategy” where you can have international things but you also have a lot of things that are appealing to the local customer.

When it comes to your operations in India, recent reports suggest that you already have over 9.5 million subscribers. Is that true?

Well, I can’t speak to the exact number. But, I’d say the early uptake has been excellent. We are encouraged.

Is there some sort of a number that you have in terms of investment for India that you could share with us?

We have a significant overall commitment towards India and then the budget of the video service is really determined by looking at what we would need to provide a compelling service to Indian customers. Once we put that together from the bottom up then we knew what the budget had to be.

Netflix has likened the Indian content market to a warzone or battleground when it comes to bidding for or winning content. What has your experience been like when you are tying up with content providers or creators?

First of all, I think there is a great energy about the Indian market and there’s a great history of storytelling and cinema. And so it’s a great opportunity to get with some of the real artists and filmmakers and try to empower them to tell Indian stories that have a really universal resonance. And I don’t really think of it as a battleground. I would describe it as more of a gymnastics competition, where technically there is competition but you are not like individually struggling with someone. You are just trying to do the best that you can do. If we focus on making customers happy with Amazon Prime and making the most talented filmmakers, creators and actors happy and inspired, and we can do both of those things, then I think we’ll be able to have a great video service. Early signs are very positive.

In India we have broadcast channels which have digital OTT platforms as well- there’s Hotstar, Voot- these services give the user TV shows and even exclusive content. Netflix aside, does it seem like a very cluttered market to you?

I think it’s not that helpful to think about who the competitors might be. It’s actually a little limiting because when you think about what you can do for customers and how you can make this attractive for creators, you don’t want somebody else to be your point of reference. Your point of reference should be what would they think is fantastic, way up here! And if your competitor is almost there or nowhere near there, you should still focus on what would be a great video service, what would be a great proposal from the point of view of a top filmmaker. We really just try to focus on that.

You mentioned that the bundling of Prime shipping and video services in India is working really well for you. Could we expect that to change in the next year? Because abroad your subscription plans vary. Could we, in India, also expect different subscription plans?

Well I think the main subscription plan to focus on is Prime as a whole, which has multiple benefits and we think there are great synergies there and people are responding well to it. In some other countries, we have Prime Video only, and it’s a little different, but here you have different services.

It’s interesting to see what Amazon is doing across its range of products and services. Just like you offer Prime Video with Prime shipping services, you have a leading e-commerce business as well, there’s Amazon Web Services and then there’s stuff in the software and hardware space like Alexa, the personal assistant. You’ve also ventured into other markets with Amazon Fire TV Stick. Is this something that Amazon consciously is trying to do- creating an ecosystem for its users? So if I’m using Amazon, then I’m only using Amazon through and through or is this something that happens organically?

It’s really the organic part. I don’t think anybody at Amazon wakes up and tries to think about there’s going to be this ecosystem, here’s the hardware and bla bla bla. I really think everybody at Amazon wakes up in the morning and thinks, “What is an exciting and new thing we can do for customers today that they would actually care about?” And then goes out and does it. It happens that these are in different areas. You have the Fire Stick, you have Amazon Web Services which is amazing, you’ve Prime Video, I think people are enjoying that. Now, they have a physical store in Seattle where you can just go in and walk out and it’s automated which is fantastic. You know the one thing that ties all of this together is that it’s driven by focus on the customer and a sense of innovation.