iWorld
Prime Video unveils APAC growth strategy built on local content and choice
Streaming giant outlines regional growth strategy with India at its centre stage
- BALI: One region, many screens. Prime Video’s latest playbook is proving that in streaming, local stories often deliver global results. At APOS 2026 in Bali, senior executives from Prime Video laid out the company’s strategy for navigating the diverse Asia-Pacific market, highlighting how country-specific approaches, deep local content investments and an expanding entertainment hub model are fuelling growth across the region.
- During a session titled The APAC Playbook: How Prime Video is Shaping Streaming’s Future, executives from India, Japan and the broader Asia-Pacific region discussed how the platform balances a unified business vision with distinct local market strategies.
- Opening the discussion, Prime Video vice president, APAC and ANZ, Gaurav Gandhi emphasised that while the company’s business model remains consistent, execution varies significantly across markets.
- “We operate a common business model, but we cannot have a common playbook for a diverse region like APAC,” Gandhi noted, pointing to the vastly different audience behaviours and content preferences across India, Japan, Southeast Asia and Australia-New Zealand.
- A central pillar of Prime Video’s strategy is its entertainment hub model, which combines subscription video-on-demand (SVOD), transactional video-on-demand (TVOD), add-on subscriptions and, increasingly, advertising-supported offerings under one platform. According to Gandhi, the objective is to simplify access while giving consumers greater choice.
- The company’s approach has evolved differently across markets. In Japan, where subscription streaming was still emerging when Prime Video launched in 2015, the focus was on building trust and creating an entirely new viewing habit.
- Reflecting on the journey, Prime Video country manager, Keisuke Oishi said the service concentrated on developing a diversified content mix spanning anime, scripted programming, unscripted shows and live sports, while complementing these offerings with pay-per-view and add-on subscription options.
- India, meanwhile, has become one of Prime Video’s most significant content engines globally.
- According to Prime Video director and head SVOD business, Shilangi Mukherji, the platform’s India strategy has been built around understanding multilingual audiences and investing heavily in original programming.
- Mukherji revealed that more than 60 per cent of Prime Video’s Indian viewers stream content in four or more languages, making multilingual programming a core part of the service’s content strategy.
- While continuing to invest heavily in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu programming alongside international content, the company has also built one of its largest originals businesses outside the United States. Prime Video India has launched more than 100 original titles to date and has over 100 additional projects currently in development or production.
- Gandhi highlighted another major development in the Indian market: the integration of Amazon MX Player with Prime Video.
- The move brings together advertising-supported and subscription-based streaming under a single ecosystem, creating what the company describes as India’s largest streaming destination for exclusive originals. The integration is expected to expand audience reach while providing advertisers and content creators access to a larger and more diverse viewer base.
- The executive also revealed the scale of Prime Video’s broader partner ecosystem, which now includes more than 600 partners globally, including over 70 in Japan, 50 in Australia and more than 30 in India.
- Looking ahead, Gandhi positioned APAC as both a growth engine and an innovation laboratory for the company’s global streaming ambitions. From mobile-first subscription plans to multilingual streaming models, the region continues to shape new approaches that could influence Prime Video’s strategy worldwide.
- As competition intensifies across the streaming landscape, Prime Video’s message at APOS 2026 was clear: success in Asia-Pacific is not about applying a single formula, but about tailoring content, distribution and customer experiences market by market while keeping viewers at the centre of the strategy.
