OTT Giants Battle in India... Amazon Makes a Bold Move with Korea-Born MX Player

Online video service (OTT) giants are fiercely competing in India. In particular, Amazon has ignited a battle for dominance with Netflix by fully integrating its free streaming service, "Amazon MX Player," which has 300 million monthly active users (MAU), into its OTT platform, "Prime Video."

Amazon logo. Photo by AP Yonhap News

According to industry sources on May 18, Amazon began integrating Amazon MX Player and Prime Video in the Indian market on May 7 (local time). By unifying its previously separate free ad-supported service (AVOD) and paid subscription service (SVOD), Amazon stands to secure a large pool of potential paid subscribers.

By exposing free users accessing the application (app) to exclusive paid content and encouraging them to subscribe, or by using this as a lure to get them to pay for the "Amazon Commerce Shopping Membership," which offers free shipping benefits, Amazon is also able to expand its ecosystem.

Amazon MX Player, which Amazon has staked as its game-changer, originated in South Korea. In the early days of Android smartphones in 2011, MX Player solved the problem of videos frequently stuttering due to low device specifications. The developer was the Korean venture company J2 Interactive, which introduced the world’s first multi-core decoding technology and subtitle support features.

MX Player was downloaded by hundreds of millions of users, becoming the world’s top video player. Noticing this, India’s largest media company, Times Group, acquired a stake in MX Player for around 140 million dollars (about 150 billion won at the time) in 2018, established a new entity (MX Media), and launched local OTT streaming. Subsequently, in June 2024, Amazon, aiming to expand in the Indian OTT market, purchased assets including MX Player’s content library.

Through this integration, Amazon is now positioned to gain an advantage in its competition with Netflix in the Indian market. This is because Amazon’s vast e-commerce data makes market expansion possible. U.S. entertainment media outlet Variety quoted an Amazon spokesperson as saying, “The platform unification is a game changer for Indian advertisers.”

As of the end of last year, Netflix’s global subscriber count surpassed 325 million, as revealed in shareholder letters and other disclosures. Amazon last announced in April 2021 that its worldwide subscribers had exceeded 200 million, but has kept the figure confidential since then. However, market research firms estimate the number to be around 250 million by back-calculating the growth rate of ‘subscription service revenue.’ With the U.S. and other markets saturated, Amazon’s expansion in India, a new frontier, is naturally drawing attention.

Of course, Amazon still faces hurdles. While Amazon and Netflix are rivals for the top two spots in global OTT market share, in India, JioCinema—formed by a partnership between local conglomerate Reliance and Disney—holds the number one position. JioCinema’s live broadcasts of cricket, which is extremely popular among Indians, are a key weapon. However, since JioCinema has chosen to focus only on local content and forego international tournaments, this has emerged as an opportunity for Netflix and Amazon.

Through its official newsroom, Amazon stated, “This integration will make Prime Video a one-stop hub for quality entertainment,” adding, “The combination of Prime Video, which excels in franchise content that transcends language and format, with Amazon MX Player’s original series and reality shows, will broaden entertainment choices and diversity.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.