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Amazon has launched its video streaming service Prime Video in India, the company's largest geographical market outside the United States.
The service is bundled with a Prime subscription in India, which is the cheapest in the world at $15 a year, but has been available for an introductory price of $7 since the company launched it in the country in July.
Amazon Prime Video competes directly with Netflix, which expanded simultaneously to 130 countries, including India, in January.
Prime Video sharply undercuts Netflix on price in India, where the cheapest Netflix subscription costs Rs. 500 a month ($7.4). It also competes with more than a dozen local streaming services which offer a mix of free ad-supported content, as well as paid options.
Launching Prime Video in India is a strategic milestone for Amazon. Thanks to a rapid smartphone penetration and falling data prices, the country is an important market for most US tech companies.
At an event in Washington in June, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said that the company would invest up to $5 billion in India. Amazon's aggressive expansion in the country has worried local rivals like Flipkart, India's largest e-commerce startup, who recently appealed for protectionist policies from the Indian government to stave off cash-rich rivals like Amazon.
Unlike Netflix, which launched in India with no Indian content at all, Amazon Prime Video already has dozens of launch titles in Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Tamil, and Telugu. Amazon has also partnered with several major film production studios in India to make dozens of Bollywood titles available on its service, and has included local language subtitles for English-language shows like Mad Men, Seinfeld, Person of Interest, Mad Men, and more. Also available are US-produced Amazon Originals series like Transparent and Bosch.
from BuzzFeed - Tech https://www.buzzfeed.com/pranavdixit/amazons-prime-video-is-now-live-in-the-companys-largest-mark?utm_term=4ldqpia
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