CATCH THE STREAM

As it becomes an Amazon product, MX Player is bringing greater reach, retail advertising, and a new level of scale to the business

- VANITA KOHLI-KHANDEKAR

Bhay traces the life and mysterious death of Gaurav Tiwari, a paranormal explorer. It is, along with Mitti, Aashram (season 3), Half CA, and Who's your Gynac (second seasons all), as well as dubbed Turkish and Korean dramas—among the 100 shows Amazon MX Player is dropping through the year.

"We are the only premium, AVOD (advertising-based video on demand) service," says Karan Bedi, director and head of Amazon MX Player. The service will always be free, say its promos.

At 250 million unique visitors a month, MX Player has for long been in the same bracket as YouTube (454 million) and Meta (324 million) in reach. However, unlike the user-generated videos from YouTube and Instagram, MX relies on originals, a la any subscription over-the-top (OTT) media platform.

Its audience size is roughly five times Prime Video's, Amazon's pay service. Not surprisingly, Amazon paid a (reported) $100 million to buy MX Player from the Times Group in 2024. It then merged it with its miniTV service.

"We had an interesting play with miniTV when the MX opportunity came," says Gaurav Gandhi, vice-president, Asia Pacific and MENA (Middle East and North Africa), Prime Video. "It made sense for us to get into the pure AVOD space. It brings large reach for us overall."

Daoud Jackson, senior analyst, media, entertainment and advertising, MENA, Turkey and India, at UK-based Informa Tech Target, is of the view that MX is Amazon's way of shortcutting to a large audience.

That is the first thing that MX brings to Amazon in India.

As the decade-old streaming business enters its next phase of growth, almost every OTT is trying to get a larger audience. Most offer their shows in six or more Indian languages.