Amazon Prime Video goes live in India. Watch out Netflix, Flipkart

Jeff Bezos must be pleased as punch. Photo credit: Steve Jurvetson.

Amazon Prime Video has gone live in India, ahead of a launch event in Mumbai later this evening. The app can be downloaded from Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store. It’s also live on the Amazon India website.

Anybody with an Amazon Prime subscription, which costs just INR 499 (US$7.4) a year, can log in now with their Amazon India username and password and start watching Prime Video. Award-winning Amazon original shows like Transparent rub shoulders with popular Indian serials like Chhota Bheem. Indian movie blockbusters like Kabali and Sultan compete for attention with Hollywood hits like Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation and Terminator Genisys. And there are the old favorites like Godfather.

Bollywood filmmakers as well as founders of comedy collective All India Bakchod will join Amazon Prime Video’s international VP Tim Lesley at the launch party. That’s also an indicator on how Amazon Prime Video hopes to one-up on Netflix, which has been popular in urban India since its launch in January.

Amazon has beefed up on local content in deals with leading Indian film studios like Dharma Productions and T-Series. It has also acquired the rights to blockbuster regional movie hits like Kabali and Theri. It’s the local content play that has kept India waiting for the Prime Video service that Tech in Asia first reported on in July.

Netflix recently announced its first local series Sacred Games, but has nothing like the mainstream Bollywood movie collection that Amazon has lined up. Original series like House of Cards have been popular on Netflix, and Amazon has worthy counterparts like Transparent, which won two Golden Globe awards.

Video-on-demand has been taking off in India, which is the world’s fastest-growing smartphone market. Hotstar, Hooq, Voot, and ErosNow are other players in the space.

See: Why the arrival of Amazon Prime is a key milestone in winning India

No wonder Flipkart’s worried

Amazon Prime annual subscription is currently available in India for INR 499 (US$7.40) – less than a tenth of its international rate. The video service is available at no extra cost, which makes it far more affordable than Netflix, which costs US$8-12 a month – depending on the number of screens on which it is accessed.

Prime Video is likely to give a significant boost to Amazon Prime membership. This will add to the worries of India’s ecommerce leader Flipkart, whose co-founder Sachin Bansal recently made a public appeal to the Indian government to follow China’s lead in keeping its global competitor out of the country.

It’s probably too late for that now. Unlike in China, Amazon is close on the heels of Flipkart in its Indian market share and has set a benchmark in customer experience.

The article was updated with information on the Amazon Prime Video app going live.