The Indian entertainment market is already brimming with video streaming giants like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video as well as indigenous services like Hotstar, ZEE5, VOOT, Eros Now and ALTBalaji. According to PwC, a global accounting firm, Indian video streaming industry will reach ₹11,977 crore ($1.6 billion) by 2023 and has reported that it’s growing at a rate of 21.8% annually.
Now, Walmart owned Flipkart, is entering this arena (as speculated) with an ad-supported video streaming service. Indian e-commerce site Flipkart has announced that it will be launching a video streaming feature through its mobile application. “Flipkart Video” as the feature is called, will roll out on its Android application within the next 20 days.
Flipkart’s CEO, Kalyan Krishnamurthy, in a statement to media said, “We believe that great content, if made available to a wider base of consumers, especially the ones who are new to e-commerce but not internet, can bring them on board on an everyday basis and help take away any anxiety that they may have towards online shopping.”
Earlier, when the e-commerce platform had launched a social shopping feature (called “Flipkart Ideas”) to its app, it made its intentions clear by stating that it wants to bring “200 million consumers online who are primarily from tier-II and tier-III cities.” The launch of video streaming service is just another step for realizing this goal.
Flipkart Video, as mentioned earlier will be an ad-supported service, which means the users won’t need to pay extra for this service. Obviously, the user must be logged in to use this service. Though Flipkart won’t be producing exclusive movies or shows (yet), it has announced a partnership with OTT (Over-The-Top) content creators like Viu, TVF, Arre, Dice Media, and VOOT, for providing content on its platform. Also, Bloomberg has reported that Flipkart Video will be licensing content from Walt Disney apart from local production houses mentioned earlier.
“Our video content offering is focused on three primary aspects, keeping in mind our understanding of the market: free, curated and personalized. We believe that our customers shouldn’t pay extra for premium content,” Flipkart said in a press release.
Flipkart also said that it is launching its services in Hindi which is spoken by more than 80% people in India. Also, the company said that the Flipkart app will be redesigned to show curated shopping and entertainment content on the home feed of the application.
Flipkart has lately been focusing on content generation in an unusually aggressive manner. Flipkart Video comes a few days after the launch of Flipkart Ideas, which is an in-app feature wherein content from brands and influencers will be showcased with associated products from Flipkart, in all multimedia formats such as videos, GIFs, images, stories, quizzes, and polls.
