Indian content trended on Prime Video's global Top 10: Gaurav Gandhi

Despite the gloom-and-doom prognosis, the Rs 35,200 crore (advertising plus pay revenue) Indian video streaming market had a strong 2024. Subscriptions rose to 125 million, up by 15 million, according to Media Partners Asia (MPA). The two anchor services in most markets worldwide, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, saw revenue and subscriber numbers increase in India. Vanita Kohli-Khandekar spoke to their India heads about the state of the business. Edited excerpts: 

What are the areas of focus for Amazon Prime Video? 

We had a fantastic 2024. We added more than 1,400 Indian and international titles to the service. Indian content trended in Prime Video’s global Top 10 every single week of the year. Mirzapur Season 3 was the most-watched show ever on Prime Video in India on its launch weekend, while Citadel: Honey Bunny was the most-watched series worldwide during its debut weekend. 

We have four key areas of focus. First, we are an entertainment hub. While we continue to invest in subscription video-on-demand (SVoD), we are excited about the adoption of our movie rentals (over 8,500 titles) and add-on channel offerings (more than 25, including Lionsgate and manoramaMAX). 

The first phase of SVoD growth was about expanding our presence across India. Now, almost 60 per cent of our customers in the country stream content in four or more Indian languages. As viewers become language-agnostic, we are also focused on bringing our global content deeper into India. 

For example, the Indian viewer­ship for Citadel: Honey Bunny and the success of Culpa Tuya, Red One, and Beast Games in India reflect this shift. 

On the movie side, we license, produce originals, and co-produce films, allowing us to secure a strong pipeline of content. Our next film, Superboys of Malegaon, produced with Excel Entertainment and Tiger Baby, hits theatres this month. 

Finally, in addition to the Prime plan, we offer an India-only Prime Lite plan tailored for single- or two-member households. We also have Amazon MX Player, a free service, which recently unveiled a slate of over 100 new shows. 

What are the consumption patterns that stand out? 

When we launch a new season of a show — whether Panchayat, Mirzapur, The Family Man, or Paatal Lok — the common thinking is that viewership will be limited to those who watched earlier seasons. However, every new season has expanded the franchise’s audience pool. (According to external estimates, each season grows the viewership universe by 20-50 per cent.) This is due to the snowball effect of fandom and Prime Video’s year-on-year subscriber growth. 

Our content premieres in over 240 countries. In India, we receive viewership from 99 per cent of the pincodes. Our team is committed to ensuring our content travels both deep and wide. 

But why hasn’t streaming achieved scale yet? (MPA estimates put Prime Video’s top line at Rs 2,800 crore and Netflix’s at Rs 3,400 crore in 2024.) 

While I can’t comment on specific figures, subscription streaming services like Prime Video have been focused on building the category. It’s still early days — SVoD took off just eight years ago. If you take a long-term view, say over 20 years, we’re not even halfway there. There is immense scope for streaming to grow. Streaming as a category is already bringing scale and impact in its first decade comparable to TV that has been there for 40 years. 

    2024 was Netflix India’s biggest year yet, says Monika Shergill   

What was 2024 like, and what’s the thinking behind the 2025 slate? 

Looking at the scale and programming we delivered, 2024 was Netflix India’s biggest year yet. We had Heeramandi, Amar Singh Chamkila, and two seasons of The Great Indian Kapil Show, which opened Netflix up to a much wider audience. Films like Laapataa Ladies, Animal, Maharaja, and Lucky Baskhar were hits. We also had series like Maamla Legal Hai, IC814: The Kandahar Hijack, Mismatched Season 3, and documentaries on Nayanthara: Beyond the Fairytale, and Modern Masters: S S Rajamouli. 

Every week, we were in the global non-English Top 10. Our 2025 slate (26 shows and films) is a rich mix of dramas, heists, rom-coms, and adrenaline-pumping action. (It also includes Aryan Khan’s directorial debut, The Ba***ds of Bollywood.) We’re also looking forward to WWE Raw, which launches on April 1. 

Is it just WWE, or will there be additional programming around it?

  It’s our live event, so every single WWE format — Raw, SmackDown — will be available in India. After the US, India is WWE’s most important market. WWE has toured India five times. 

As you push for reach, will you enter the ad-supported space, where YouTube and DD Free Dish operate? Netflix hasn’t played in that territory in India yet. 

That’s because we’re seeing strong, sustained growth in the SVoD category. We are a revenue-first company — only by being financially sustainable can we reinvest in creating the Next Big Thing. That’s how our model works. We’re a pure-play entertainment service. 

We just finished our earnings call: Netflix had a strong year (with 302 million subscribers and $39 billion in revenue). Globally, 70 per cent of our content is watched with subtitles or dubbing. Whether it’s English being viewed in different languages or Hindi and South Indian content reaching Japanese and Korean audiences, our reach is vast. We are already serving about 700 million people worldwide. Every piece of content on Netflix has a huge potential audience. 

There’s been talk of over-the-top (OTT) platforms pulling back on spending. Why? 

I don’t know where that perception is coming from, but it doesn’t apply to Netflix. If you look at last year’s slate, we programmed content across every format. 

When OTT first emerged, budgets were uncontrolled and unhinged because no one knew the measure of success. Now, a few years in, the industry functions like television — where clear success benchmarks guide programming choices. Strea­ming is maturing, and the industry is becoming more informed. What’s happening now is a rightsizing of budgets, not a pullback.