India’s video streaming market is already quite populated with services like Hotstar, Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Hooq, Voot, Sony Liv, Jio Cinema, Eros Now and others competing with each other to offer more locally relevant and vernacular content as well as international titles. Now, as per reports, a new player is readying make a splash in India's OTT market. Walmart-owned Flipkart is going head on with its ecommerce competitor Amazon to ready a streaming service which may launch within a year’s time.
Talking to ET Now in a televised interview, Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy said that since Flipkart is not a content company at heart, it will partner with existing players in the market to populate its upcoming streaming service. No name has been chosen for Flipkart’s video streaming service yet, but the CEO believes that the company will be able to enter the market soon.
Looks like Flipkart has tried to ape rival Amazon time and again. Compared to Amazon, Flipkart offers very limited services to its consumers. The company had tried entering the music streaming market previously, but it failed to gain any traction there. It also had an ebook store which barely took off. However, video streaming in India is really taking flight right now as people are increasingly cutting the cord with their television sets. According to a recent consumer lens study completed by Counterpoint research, Hotstar leads India’s video streaming market currently.
Another report by the research agency points out that apart from OTT services, short-format video apps (such as TikTok and Vigo) are also emerging as alternatives to OTT online video streaming options in India.
So needless to say, video streaming is a good direction to take for Flipkart, provided it can get its hands on good and varied content.