Amazon launched its instant on-demand video service in India, under the name and brand of Amazon Prime Video. At the launch Tim Leslie – VP (Amazon Video, International), spoke to Team Estrade about Amazon Prime Video, their offerings in terms of content and Indian markets in general. Tim has been a 16 year veteran of Amazon. As Vice President of Amazon Video, International, he has been responsible for expansion of Prime Video outside of the US, UK and Germany. He holds a B.A. – Economics from Beloit College and J.D. – Law from Yale University’s Yale Law School.
- In Asia, your biggest market would be India, China or Russia?
We are making the biggest investments in India. Our biggest investment in content is here in India. We expect that millions of customers are going to enjoy, Prime Video India. But, we also think that Grand Tour is a very popular show globally and we have also had customers around the world, asking for original content. So, we expect customers around the world are going to enjoy prime video, but, today we are definitely making a large investment in Prime Video India.
- You have gifting options like you have for Amazon US?
We don’t have the gift card at launch for Prime Video, we offer other payment mechanisms in India. We have all of the local payment mechanisms. We will continue to add more ways for people to pay.
- What is the size of market that you are looking at, in dollar terms, in the Indian sub-continent?
We think there are millions of customers in India who are going to be interested in the Prime Video content and at the value that we are providing it at, Rs. 499 per year. In addition to free shipping of millions of products; think it’s a compelling value that millions are going to sign up for.
- How do you compare Amazon Prime Video to the competition?
The Prime, is a great value for customers, compared to other services. The average amount that people pay for our service over year is closer to being what customers pay over a month for other services like that.
“When we are sitting here five years from now, we will be asking, “You are a Prime member? Why aren’t you a Prime Member?”
- Customers have small data plans in India and have to make internet calls or use data for other things from the same plan. You don’t feel that this is a hindrance for your product?
Well, we innovated to launch in India. To make sure that we have a new data saver mode. So, good, better and best, we have now offer in the data saver mode. Customers can use our service with using less data at launch. But we also offer downloads on titles that you can watch offline on your devices. And we will continue to look for ways to innovate for providing more data saver options to our customers.
- Is piracy a major concern?
I think that if you can provide a compelling service, with a great playback, which will have data saver options, which we have, with compelling content at a great value, which we absolutely have, then it provides much lesser reason to pirate content. So, you know, if you meet a lot of those needs, a lot of the content that people pirate is content that’s not readily available, at least on a good service at a good value.
- Indian consumers are very price sensitive. So, a lot of services have a high threshold of entering the market. At Rs. 499 per year price point, you will attract a lot of customers, but what happens when you will increase it in the future?
What I think is that, at Rs. 41 per month, this is such a compelling offer that it is bound to attract customers. We will make sure that it is a great value to the customers, so that, when we are sitting here five years from now, we will be asking, “You are a Prime member? Why aren’t you a Prime Member?” Look at all the benefits Prime provides, it still provides it at a great value. We want Prime to be a program where customers ask themselves, why they aren’t Prime Members.
“We innovated to launch in India” – Tim Leslie, Amazon Video – International
