Battle for paid video streaming has been playing out in India between Amazon Prime, Hotstar and Netflix for some time now. While Amazon Prime, and Hotstar are betting big on regional contents, as of now, Netflix is driving subscription completely through global shows.
Recently, Netflix has launched an India focused original, directed by Anurag Kashyap – Sacred Games (starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Saif Ali Khan and others). But, the company claims that originals such as Stranger Things, Love Per Square Foot, The Crown, and Narcos are greater drivers of its subscription.
Betting big on regional content Amazon Prime offers originals including Inside Edge, Chacha Vidhayak Hain Humare, Die Trying, Lakhon mein Ek and a few others. Priced at annual subscription of Rs 999, Amazon Prime has about 13 million subscribers in India.
Hotstar has about 5 million paid subscribers (as per Entrackr’s estimate). It charges Rs 999 for annual subscription, and offers originals including ‘Suffering from Pyaar’.
Meanwhile, according to a Hindustan Times report, Netflix counts 500K paid subscribers in India.
Going by above numbers, Amazon Prime makes near Rs 1,300 crore annually from subscription while Hotstar generates Rs 500 crore through subscription. Relatively, Netflix makes Rs 300 crore revenue a year.
Ever since Reliance Jio launch in 2016, Indian streaming market has been experiencing a hockey stick growth. While 216 million people had used streaming service by the end of 2017 (76 million more than 2016), still number of paid subscribers is in the tune of a few million.
Toying with the Amazon and Netflix pattern, YouTube is also creating scripted series and other original programming for the Indian market. The paid subscription (YouTube Premium) will generate content in genres including music documentaries, talk shows, and reality series.
