 "Prime Video viewers in India to face ad interruptions starting 2025")
Starting 2025, Amazon’s Prime Video viewers in India will have to face interruptions due to advertisements during shows and movies on the streaming platform.
The change, which is already in effect in the United States, is aimed at Amazon’s plans to fund content investments amid heated competition in the sector.
“To continue investing in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over a long period of time, starting in 2025, Prime Video shows and movies will include limited advertisements in India,” the company said in an official statement.
Prime Video said that it aims to have “meaningfully fewer” advertisements compared to its competitors. The company plans to increase its “investments over a long period of time” in its titles, it said.
How to sign up for Amazon Prime ad-free service
For an uninterrupted, ad-free experience, users will likely have to shell out more money for the streaming platform’s services. The pricing details for such plans are not out yet. However, there will be no changes to the current price of Prime membership in 2025. Amazon also said that the users will be notified about the advertisement related introductions “several weeks before” through email, which will include details about the ad-free option plan.
The development signals the intensifying competition in the streaming services market. Data analytics firm Comscore predicted that Reliance and Disney’s $8.5 billion mega-merger could capture nearly half of India’s streaming users, prompting other providers to adapt and respond.
Amazon has continued to invest heavily in its platform in India due to its growing user base. More people are signing up for Amazon Prime in India than anywhere else in the world over the last few years, Mike Hopkins, senior vice-president at Prime Video had said in March.
Some reports estimate that the Indian internet industry is expected to reach a valuation of $5 trillion by 2030.