Home-grown e-commerce firm Flipkart, owned by US retail giant Walmart, is stepping up its online game in India by mulling its own video streaming service. Flipkart is planning to start the free Indian video streaming service in coming months, escalating a fight with Amazon by borrowing its arch-foe’s tactics, reported Bloomberg on Monday.
The Indian online giant plans to roll out the video streaming service for members of Flipkart Plus loyalty programme by September, ahead of the peak Diwali shopping season, the report quoted familiar people as saying. The service is currently in beta mode.
With the move, Flipkart is taking a leaf out of its archrival Amazon's playbook. Amazon Prime Video service has helped the American giant to retain shoppers and attract new ones. Flipkart eyes a level-playing field in online space in India by venturing into the online space.
The report comes amid reports that Amazon was in talks with Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Retail to buy 26 per cent stake in the country's biggest brick-and-mortar retailer.
Reportedly, Flipkart is unlikely to produce originals initially. The plan, instead, is to license content from the likes of Walt Disney Co and local studios such as Balaji Telefilms, the people said.
also read
- Is Bazaar Amazon's budget-friendly answer to Meesho and Flipkart's Shopsy?
- Job cuts continue at Amazon. AWS lays off hundreds of employees
- Amazon invested $1.2 billion, hired 15,000 people in 2023 to tackle counterfeit, fraud
- Will Amazon India's revised seller fees affect product prices? Check out impacted categories
Apparently, Flipkart Plus video-streaming will come free, just like its no-subscription fee loyalty programme. Flipkart shoppers can become members by amassing 300 “super coins", at a rate of 2 for every ₹100 spent on its platform. Users can exchange those tokens for items from flight tickets and food delivery to car rentals and music streaming subscriptions. And, again unlike its rival, the Indian company does not automatically offer deals on shipping, with free delivery limited to only very few products.
Online streaming is rapidly gaining presence in India with the likes of Hotstar, Netflix and Amazon Prime taking the reins currently. According to estimated by Cisco Systems, Indian video streaming market could hit 829 million smartphone users by 2022, compared with about half a billion now. The market is also expected to grow to 10 times the current $500 million size by 2023, according to a report by the Boston Consulting Group last year.