Mumbai, February 8: The arrival of Amazon Prime Video in India suppressed the popularity of Netflix which was the first major paid video streaming service to make its debut in India. According to a report by TOI, the subscriber base of Amazon Prime has overtaken the former in several markets. It is going to be a year after Amazon Prime Video was launched in India and it has done wonders ever since! According to data by global information company IHS Markit, Amazon Prime Video is slightly ahead of Netflix in India, with about 10% of market share in 2017 while Germany and Japan are countries where Amazon's subscriber base has surpassed that of Netflix's.

Despite all the mounting competition, Netflix continues to be the global leader in online video streaming. It must be noted that access to Prime Video is available after downloading the Prime Video app on supported devices to begin streaming a broad selection of the latest and exclusive movies, TV shows, stand-up comedies, kids’ programming and Amazon Prime Originals.

IHS Markit spokesperson was quoted by TOI saying, "To clarify, these are Amazon Prime subscribers who actively use Prime Video as opposed to the total Prime subs”.  "Initially, Amazon Prime was the same price per year (Rs 499) as the lowest tier Netflix subscription cost per month (Rs 500)," said the IHS Markit spokesperson. "Although this has now doubled to Rs 999 per year for Amazon, it is still a significant discount, considering a service that offers more than just online video."

As per reports, pricing has been the key factor for driving Amazon Prime and Prime Video in India. As per reports, Netflix refused to comment. India is the main market for Amazon Prime Video. The e-commerce major had earlier informed that it would invest $300 million for creating original content in regional languages and in Hindi which may cause a harm to Netflix's portfolio in the Indian market.

Earlier this week, Amazon was quoted by PTI saying that India continues to be a "good story" for its business, even as its losses from its international operations widened to USD 919 million for the December 2017 quarter. The operating loss in Amazon's international business was at USD 487 million during the year-ago period. The net sales in the segment grew to USD 18.03 billion in the fourth quarter, from USD 13.96 billion a year ago.  "India continues to be a good story for us. We feel that it's had a lot of growth in the past year. In fact, more Prime members joined India's Prime programme in the first year than we've seen in any other country in the history of the world, our world," Amazon Senior VP and CFO Brian Olsavsky said in an investor call.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Feb 08, 2018 10:59 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).