As more and more subscription based streaming services are introducing advertising on the platform, Amazon Prime Video India is being no exception. The streaming service will feature advertisements during the Indian men’s cricket team’s New Zealand tour beginning from November 18. 

The series will be aired live and exclusive only on Prime Video as the platform is the official India territory rights holder to exclusively stream all men’s and women’s cricket matches played in New Zealand.

“India men’s tour of New Zealand will be the first LIVE cricket series on Prime Video to feature advertisements, helping brands reach Prime Video’s premium base of highly engaged customers, spread across the country,” the company said in a statement. 

While it has onboarded Airtel Xstream Fiber as the presenting sponsor of the tournament, it has also roped in other consumer brands such as MPL, Nescafé, Noise, OLX Autos, and Vida as associate sponsors. Additionally, brands such as AMFI and DBS have also joined the league of advertisers.

Prime Video will deliver live commentary and match-programming in English, Hindi, Tamil, Kannada and Telugu. Viewers will also be able to see graphics in these languages. Former captains and cricketers including Ravi Shastri, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra, Gundappa Viswanath, Anjum Chopra, Venkatpathy Raju, among others, will be on the commentary panel.

“With live cricket, made immersive and accessible with multi-language feeds, fantastic studio programming and a superb set of commentators to take us through the series, we are confident we are not just going to deliver on a superior experience for the legions of cricket fans in the country, but make Prime Video that much more exciting, delightful,” Sushant Sreeram, director – SVOD business, Prime Video, India, said.

To stand out in the crowded OTT market, the over-the-top (OTT) platform has been innovating lately around its pricing model. Recently, it launched a mobile-only plan in India which will cost INR 599 per year. Indian users can opt for the plan, Prime Video Mobile Edition, via the Prime Video app on Android or its website.

“Over the last six years we have seen a huge growth for Prime Video in India. With viewers from 99% of the country’s pin codes, the service has become the preferred destination for premium content,” Gaurav Gandhi, vice president of Prime Video India, said, at the time of the launch.

Prime Video’s international rival Netflix was the first streaming service to bring a mobile-only plan in India as it launched a mobile-only subscription plan in 2019. In case of advertising as well, Netflix has already launched its ad based tier recently. However, India was not on the list of the first few countries where the platform was launched. 

Amazon Prime competes with the likes of Disney+Hotstar, Netflix, MX Player, Voot and Zee5, among others,in India. 

According to a Deloitte report, the overall OTT space in India is expected to grow at a CAGR of more than 20% to reach $13 Bn−$15 Bn over the next decade. The Subscription Video on Demand (SVoD) market is expected to grow to $2.1 Bn from $0.8 Bn currently over the same period. 

Meanwhile, the Advertising-Based Video on Demand’s (AVoD) market size in India is estimated to increase to $2.4 Bn by 2026 from $1.1 Bn currently.