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Tag: Amazon Prime

  • Amazon Prime brings new season of The Expanse

    Amazon Prime brings new season of The Expanse

    MUMBAI: Season 4 of The Expanse, its first as a global Amazon Original, begins a new chapter for the series, with the crew of the Rocinante on a mission from the U.N. to explore new worlds beyond the Ring Gate. Humanity has been given access to thousands of Earth-like planets which has created a land rush and furthered tensions between the opposing nations of Earth, Mars and the Belt. Ilus is the first of these planets, one rich with natural resources but also marked by the ruins of a long dead alien civilization. While Earthers, Martians and Belters maneuver to colonize Ilus and its natural resources, these early explorers don’t understand this new world and are unaware of the larger dangers that await them.

    Season 4 of The Expanse stars Steven Strait as James Holden, Dominique Tipper as Naomi Nagata, Wes Chatham as Amos Burton, Cas Anvar as Alex Kamal, Shohreh Aghdashloo as Chrisjen Avasarala, Frankie Adams as Bobbie Draper, Thomas Jane as Josephus Miller, Cara Gee as Camina Drummer, David Strathairn as Kales Ashford, and Burn Gorman as Adolphus Murtry. The Expanse is produced by Alcon Television Group and will launch on Amazon Prime Video on December 13th.

    Bring on the juice, man. Kevin Smith recaps the first three seasons of The Expanse so you can jump right into season four when it’s released Friday, December 13th on Amazon Prime Video. A show known for its visual effects, Kevin assumes he’ll have access to the same high-caliber graphics throughout the recap. He shows off his green screen prowess while summarizing 30 hours of action-packed TV, unaware special effects were never planned to be added.

  • Netflix sees 83% rise in price-related search after India-specific plan

    Netflix sees 83% rise in price-related search after India-specific plan

    MUMBAI: SEMrush, the online visibility management and content marketing SaaS Platform, recently conducted data analysis on three most trending media services in India – Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Tata Sky. The case study revealed amazingly interesting facts regarding the growth of traffic from different devices and an increase in the search volume. Netflix Subscription is the most searched keyword in the time duration from Jan 2018 to July 2019. After the announcement of Netflix’s new subscription plan for India, its price search volume increased swiftly by 83% between June 2019 and July 2019. Besides, Amazon Prime Subscription stands as the second most searched keyword with an average search volume of 6,878.9.

    On the other hand, Tata Sky’s app has the highest searched volume of 44,826 during the same time duration. Tata Sky has the smallest traffic volume, but it has shown a tremendous year-on-year growth counting to 293 per cent. Wherein, Netflix witnessed a 146 per cent growth in its traffic volume after Tata Sky. Interestingly, Amazon Prime enjoys the biggest traffic volume from India, but its year-on-year growth is merely 70 per cent.

    The desktop traffic to Netflix and Amazon Prime Video in July was 11,138,893 and 13,593,504 respectively. Both the media services have grown by 36 per cent in July 2019 as compared to the previous month. Netflix shows the biggest growth of mobile traffic (15.6 per cent) between June 2019 and July 2019, after it announced its new subscription plan, however, Tata Sky and Amazon still are bigger in numbers of mobile device traffic counting to 7,537,672 and 12,290,142 respectively as compared to Netflix’s traffic count 6,244,056.

     “Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Tata Sky are the new age media services which are giving tough competition to each other. All three of these media services are significantly attracting Indian audiences for the subscription with interesting packages. The data revealed in the study is self-explanatory for their accelerating popularity amongst viewers. According to this case study by SEMrush, Indian audiences are inclining more towards Netflix’s subscription in last couple of months, all credits to its interesting subscription plan,” SEMrush international market Fernando Angulo said.

  • How brands made the most out of Friendship Day on Twitter

    How brands made the most out of Friendship Day on Twitter

    MUMBAI: As the world celebrated Friendship Day this Sunday, some brands also bonded with their fans on Twitter to mark the relationship they share with them. From extending messages to fellow members of brand-verse on Twitter to coming out with cheesy friendship messages for fans, to hosting social media challenges for fans, the brands did all and more to make this day special. Here are some of the most creative friendship day campaigns that Indiantelevision.com came across on Twitter:

    1. Amazon Prime Video India

    Amazon Prime Video tagged a number of brands including Starbucks, Zomato, Ola in cheesy friendship day messages, using Shah Rukh Khan from Kuch Kuch Hota Hai as a template. Here are some of the most creative takes:

    Other brands also followed suit and came up with some really interesting and creative friendship day messages for their users. Have a look!

    2. Amul

    3. Dharma Productions

    4. Google India

    5. Honor India

    6. Manforce India

    7. Maxxis Tyres

    8. Netflix India

    9. Red Chillies Entertainment

    10. SBI Life Insurance

    11. UP Police

    12. Vivo India

    13. YouTube India

    14. Zee 5

    15. Gaana

  • Akshay Kumar makes his digital debut with Amazon’s upcoming Prime Original series ‘THE END’

    Akshay Kumar makes his digital debut with Amazon’s upcoming Prime Original series ‘THE END’

    MUMBAI: Amazon Prime Video today announced Indian Superstar, Akshay Kumar, as lead actor in Amazon’s upcoming action-packed Prime Original thriller series, THE END (working title). Coming from Abundantia Entertainment, the creators of critically acclaimed Prime Original Series, Breathe, the show, also the streaming debut of Akshay Kumar marks the second collaboration between Amazon Prime Video and Abundantia Entertainment. The new series will be a globe-spanning, latest offering to the actor’s fans across 200 countries and territories upon its release exclusively on Amazon Prime Video.

    The multi-season show, THE END (working title), is presently under active development and aims to appeal to fans of the action-thriller genre worldwide. Being envisioned at an unprecedented scale and cinematic experience, the show promises to bring in the next level of the action genre.

     Amazon Studios head Jennifer Salke said, “The scale at which THE END (working title) is being conceived is enormous and speaks of our passion for creating breakout programming across genres. The storyline and the action sequences have been brilliantly crafted to give viewers a thrilling experience. Our goal is to make Amazon Prime Video the powerhouse of talent, in front as well as behind the camera, and we are thrilled to have Akshay Kumar and Abundantia Entertainment anchoring the show for us. We will continue to bring distinctive, fresh and high quality content to our audiences and we believe, our Prime members across the world are going to absolutely love the show.”

    Amazon Prime Video India director and head of content Vijay Subramaniam said, “We are excited to bring Akshay Kumar to Amazon Prime Video, closer to millions of his global fans, to recreate his magic and offer something spectacular”.

    Abundantia Entertainment CEO and executive producer Vikram Malhotra said, “Akshay and I have successfully collaborated on multiple films over the last decade and his versatility in choice of roles is unmatched. We, now, mutually felt that it was time to take things to the next level. I am proud that he makes his digital debut with Amazon Prime Video & Abundantia in a genre-defining, edge-of-the-seat action drama series. Unafraid of taking risks, we are certain that he would be perfect for the character he plays on the show and his fans would be excited to see him back in an action packed role. This time, Akshay will take his action and stunts to a never-seen-before level. I am equally delighted to once again work with the wonderful team at Amazon Prime Video and take Abundantia’s high-quality story-telling to the next level.”

    Actor Akshay Kumar said, “I have always believed in bringing innovation to my work and throughout my career, have tried to tell unique stories, work with break-through talent and be part of disruptive and high quality story-telling.  Together, Abundantia and I have created some of my most memorable roles in films like Baby, Airlift and Toilet-Ek Prem Katha and their passion towards their films and projects is incredible. From the very concept of the show, I am working very closely with Vikram and his team as they create this compelling and highly intriguing story. I can’t wait to start rolling for this action adventure series that will be Amazon Original for global audiences. The digital world excited me and I am delighted to make my streaming debut with this show. And if I were to make a small confession here, it was my son Aarav who suggested that I make my digital debut as that’s what the youth is hooked onto. On this medium, I want to create something extraordinary and connect with them”.

    Amazon Prime Video has the largest selection of latest & exclusive movies and TV shows, stand-up comedy, biggest Indian and Hollywood films, US TV series, most popular Indian & international kids’ shows, and award-winning Amazon Prime Originals, all available, ad-free, with a world class customer experience. Besides Kannada, the platform also includes titles available in Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu and Bengali.

  • Media consumption in India growing @9% in last 6 years: CII-BCG report

    Media consumption in India growing @9% in last 6 years: CII-BCG report

    MUMBAI: The Indian media industry, experiencing disruptions, is witnessing an increase in consumption that has been facilitated by proliferation of broadband too and over the last six years has been growing at the rate of nine percent.

    According to a CII_BCG report released today at CII Big Picture Summit event in New Delhi, at 4.6 hours of consumption per capita per day, India is still behind China (6.4 hours) and US (11.8 hours), suggesting further headroom for growth.

    “Unlike in developed countries, in India this growth has been additive and not cannibalising traditional media, yet. For the next several years, we expect India to remain a multi-modal market where all forms of media, including traditional media like TV and digital will continue to co-exist," the report states.

    In 2012, total media consumption per capita per day was 2.7 hours which was further distributed into print (0.2 hours), radio (0.2 hours), TV (1.9 hours) and digital (0.4 hours). On the other hand, 4.6 hours consumption per capita per day has increased to print (0.3 hours), radio (0.3 hours), TV (2.7 hours) and digital (1.3 hours).

    Over the past 2-3 years, the number of broadband users has become 2X (~480 million broadband users across mobile and fixed) and the data consumption has become 10X (~10 GB per user per month).

    Indian media formats are primarily advertising driven and consumer costs are minimal. Unlike the US where the cost of a cable connection can be as high as $80 per month, India with $3 cost of cable per month doesn’t have the need for skinny bundles.

    India is undergoing a video explosion. Indian consumers are consuming ~190 minutes of video per day per user across platforms, which has been growing at ~8 per cent over the last five years. 30+ digital platforms have been added to the wide range of TV channels. While an average consumer consumes 10-15 channels per day and 2-3 apps in any given month, the overall spectrum of platforms from a content creators/curator’s perspective is massive.

    Global players are realising the importance of creating curated content, in line with viewer preferences. Players like Netflix invest aggressively to match 3X the investment made by top players like Amazon Prime and Hulu. Top 5 global players as per their annual content budget are Fox ($16.7 biilion), Comcast ($15 billion), Disney ($12.7 billion), Time Warner ($12.4 billion) and Netflix ($12 billion).

  • Amazon heavily dependent on Diwali sale for revenue

    Amazon heavily dependent on Diwali sale for revenue

    MUMBAI: Not only do Indians eagerly await Diwali but so does Amazon it seems. The largest online retailer across the world has published a mixed result for the third quarter. While its revenue fell short of Wall Street expectation, it posted a record profit. On the other hand, despite the growth in domestic business, the international business showed a significant slowdown. Interestingly, a late Diwali in India has been cited as the reason which shows how crucial the Indian market has become for it.

    “There's also material change in the Diwali calendar in India. About half of our Diwali sales last year were in Q3. This year they'll be fully in Q4. So those are a couple factors that hit the international growth area in particular,” Amazon chief financial officer Brian T Olsavsky said in an earnings call.

    In India, Amazon is already fighting the domestic player Flipkart which is now backed by Walmart. The first leg of Diwali sale from both the player was around same time. Despite Flipkart’s popularity in India, three fold number of people signed up on Amazon to shop in the first two days compared to last year.

    “We've seen great response from customers. We've had 60 per cent growth in new customers during the period. Orders are coming in from 99 per cent of the pin codes in the country. So, great first wave of the, what we call the Amazon's Great Indian Festival, which lead into Diwali,” Olsavsky added.

    Advertising has been one of the major areas where the company reaped high profit. The revenue from the unit representing its display, sponsored product and other advertising revenue jumped 123 per cent, more than double the growth rate a year earlier.  While it is locked in a battle with Google, Facebook for digital ad pie, the company has made it clear that it won’t go down the road of ad-supported Amazon Prime Video soon.

    Amazon Prime membership, the card at hand to turn more consumers into shoppers, has continued to grow in US, as well as other countries. The company claims to be satisfied with the renewal data and annual sign up data since the price increase earlier this year.

    “Since then, program remains very strong, both in membership and engagement, and a lot of our video content, music and shipping definitely as well as other Prime Benefits. We just continue to see that ramp up, not only in the US, but in other countries. So we do continue to make the Prime offer better as well,” Amazon CFO said.

    Although the slowdown in international business led to fall in shares, it continued to reduce losses, which came down to $385 million in Q3 from $494 million in Q2. However, on the back of Diwali sale Amazon expects a huge boost to international segment reaffirming India’s importance in its business.

  • Amazon Q3 results fall short of Wall Street expectations

    Amazon Q3 results fall short of Wall Street expectations

    MUMBAI: E-commerce giant Amazon could not beat Wall Street expectation with its revenue and fourth quarter guidance in its third quarter earnings despite turning in a record profit. The company has reported a $2.9 billion profit for the three months ending in September topping $1 billion for the fourth consecutive quarter. Revenues of $56.58 billion fell short of expectations for $57.1 billion as well as guided revenue of $66.5 billion to $72.5 billion for next quarter.

    Its high margin business including cloud, advertising and third-party seller services propelled the growth of its profit more than its core retail business. Its cloud business by revenue saw sales up 45.7 per cent to $6.68 billion. On the other hand, its advertising business, jumped 123 per cent to $2.5 billion in revenue.

    “Net sales increased 29 per cent to $56.6 billion in the third quarter, compared with $43.7 billion in third quarter 2017. Excluding the $260 million unfavorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, net sales increased 30 per cent compared with third quarter 2017,” the company said in a release.

    For the fourth quarter guiding too, Amazon has anticipated an unfavorable impact of approximately 80 basis points from foreign exchange rates. But this quarter is most important for the company’s sales due to the holiday season.

    While total revenue increased 29 per cent from last year, a considerable trait has to be discussed. Though in its home market its growth was at high speed, in international markets that was lower. North American sales were $34.3 billion, up 35 per cent from last year but international sales grew just 13 per cent to $15.5 billion. The disappointing international result indicates that competition in e-commerce space is escalating.

    “Amazon Business has now reached a $10 billion annual sales run rate and is serving millions of private and public-sector organisations in eight countries,” said Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos especially mentioned this segment.

    “Amazon Business is adding customers rapidly, including large educational institutions, local governments, and more than half of the Fortune 100. These organisations are choosing Amazon Business because it increases transparency into business spending and streamlines purchasing, with increased control. The team is doing a fantastic job building and innovating for customers,” he added.

    Though Prime Video is a part of its attempt to turn customers for shopping by engaging through the video content, it has become a major competitor of streaming giant Netflix. “Prime Video continues to announce original series debuting in 2018, including: Homecoming, a psychological thriller starring Julia Roberts, and produced and directed by Sam Esmail; as well as season 2 of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, recent winner of eight Emmy awards including Outstanding Comedy Series,” the company added.

    Amazon is also launching monthly Prime membership in Canada and Mexico, quarterly Prime membership in China, and monthly Prime Student membership in Germany.

  • AMAZON PRIME VIDEO PRESENTS THE MARVELOUS MRS. MAISEL SEASON 2 TRAILER

    AMAZON PRIME VIDEO PRESENTS THE MARVELOUS MRS. MAISEL SEASON 2 TRAILER

    MUMBAI: After Midge’s triumph at the Gaslight, the fallout from her takedown of Sophie Lennon looms large, making her climb up the comedy ladder more challenging than ever. As the actual grind of being a comic begins to take its toll on Midge, the pressure to come clean to her family weighs on her – especially as her choices have a ripple effect on everyone around her.

    CAST: Rachel Brosnahan, Tony Shalhoub, Alex Borstein, Marin Hinkle, Michael Zegen, Kevin Pollak

    EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS:  Amy Sherman-Palladino (creator/executive producer), Daniel Palladino (executive producer)

    Amazon Prime Video has the largest selection of latest & exclusive movies and TV shows, stand-up comedy, biggest Indian and Hollywood films, US TV series, most popular Indian & international kids’ shows, and award winning Amazon Prime Originals, all available, ad-free, with a world class customer experience. Besides Kannada, the platform also includes titles available in Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu and Bengali.

  • Netflix makes up 15% of total downstream traffic on global internet

    Netflix makes up 15% of total downstream traffic on global internet

    MUMBAI: The world’s largest over-the-top (OTT) player, Netflix, makes up 15 per cent of the total downstream volume of traffic across the entire internet, according to The Global Internet Phenomena reports by Sandvine released in October 2018. The reports customer base represents over 150 T1 and T2 global network operators and the solutions touch over 2.1 billion internet subscribers worldwide which does not include significant data from either China or India.

    This edition combines fixed and mobile data into a single comprehensive view of internet traffic across all network types.

    Video is still dominant with almost 58 per cent of overall downstream traffic, despite operators more aggressively managing video traffic. The reports from previous years highlighted that Netflix, YouTube, Facebook and BitTorrent were the biggest historical traffic sources. All of the applications are still big players, but the internet landscape has significantly diversified; regional variations are showing up throughout this report. A conservative estimate of the data shows that over 50 per cent of the traffic on the internet is encrypted and the adoption of Transport Layer Security (TLS) 1.3 has grown (showing a shift to a more secure protocol than Secure Sockets Layer (SSL).

    The global application category traffic share have video streaming, web and gaming on top application type on the internet. As web and video traffic dominate, Netflix is the top video site in the world.

    Sandvine CEO Lyn Cantor said, “The foundation of our business model is being ‘the best’ telco network data analytics company with use cases that help our customers understand, optimise and manage subscriber quality of experience (QoE).”

    Amazon Prime service has been a huge market success according to the report, and Prime Video has been increasing its footprint not only in the US, but is now available in 200 countries worldwide and is increasing its share of global traffic.

    YouTube is at the third position when it comes to global application traffic share and still the dominant video streaming application consumed on mobile. Netflix takes the lead due to sheer volume in fixed networks as well as higher resolution videos being the norm. YouTube benefits from being the most commonly “embedded video on other sites, including Facebook.

    Sandvine VP marketing Cam Cullen said, “With the attention of both consumers and network operators focused on network quality, it is more important than ever for operators to understand how their bandwidth is being consumed.”

  • BSNL strikes deal with Amazon for free Prime membership for post-paid, broadband customers

    BSNL strikes deal with Amazon for free Prime membership for post-paid, broadband customers

    Mumbai: State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has tied up with e-commerce major Amazon to offer free Prime membership to select post-paid and broadband customers. BSNL users in India are eligible for one year of free membership worth Rs. 999. BSNL customers can avail these benefits with Rs 399 post-paid or Rs 745 broadband landline plans.
    The annual Amazon Prime membership can be activated through the BSNL website. Access to Prime Video is available after downloading the Prime Video app on supported devices. Similarly, one can enjoy Playlists and Stations specially curated by Amazon’s music editors across moods, activities, genres, artists and decades, by downloading the Amazon Prime Music app and avail shopping benefits by logging in with their Prime account credentials on Amazon.in.
    With this offering, eligible BSNL customers can enjoy unlimited streaming anytime, anywhere of top TV shows, standup comedies, favorite kids’ animation shows and premium movies – including the latest and exclusive blockbuster Bollywood and Indian Regional movies like Padmaavat, Raazi, Race 3, Kaala and Mahanati. Members can also enjoy critically acclaimed and hugely popular Prime Original series like Breathe, 2018 International Emmy® nominated Inside Edge, The Grand Tour, American Gods and now Comicstaan and Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan. In addition, customers can stream ad-free music with unlimited offline downloads across tens of millions of songs in multiple languages – English, Hindi, Tamil, Punjabi, Telugu, Bengali and more – and get free fast delivery on millions of items with early access to deals and discounts on Amazon.

    Amazon Prime Video India director and business head Gaurav Gandhi said, “Prime Video has received an overwhelming response from customers across the length and breadth of the country. We are thrilled that our association with BSNL will expand the reach of Prime Video to an even larger base of customers who can now enjoy premium content on a screen of their choice – be it their mobile device or the television in their living room.”
    BSNL chairman and managing director Anupam Shrivastava said “We understand the customer shift towards a highly networked digital ecosystem. Customers today demand freedom and flexibility in shopping and streaming content online. Our collaboration with Amazon India is our commitment to stay ahead of times providing the best to our customers. It provides them access to thousands of Indian and international movies, videos, TV Shows and music on the go. We are confident that our customers can enjoy uninterrupted on-the-go shopping and entertainment benefits with their Amazon Prime membership”.

    Amazon Prime India director and head Akshay Sahi said, “We are pleased to collaborate with BSNL making Amazon Prime membership accessible to more customers. Eligible BSNL post-paid and broadband landline customers can now experience Amazon Prime as a part of their plan. We believe these subscribers will love the many benefits of Prime and enjoy unlimited shopping, shipping and entertainment.”
    BSNL, Amazon Prime, Gaurav Gandhi, Anupam Shrivastava