As part of its plans to take on Amazons Prime Videos, Flipkart is planning to launch a free video streaming service before the end of the year. Believed to have been first reported by MoneyControl, the development has since been confirmed by Flipkart CEO, Kalyan Krishnamurthy. In a press statement on Monday, he also revealed that the service will be named ‘Flipkart Videos’ and, offer a curated range of movies, shows and entertainment programs with a focus on India.
“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”, said Krishnamurthy.
While the company didn’t reveal any time-frame for the launch, the earlier report from MoneyControl claimed that it will be rolled out in September, just ahead of the festive season in the country. Unlike Amazon’s service, however, Flipkart won’t be producing original content, but instead, will license programs from the likes of Walt Disney and Balaji Telefilms. The Walmart-owned retailer, however, is believed to have plans to create its own content in the future.
Meanwhile, Flipkart Videos will only offer Hindi-language content to begin with, although, it’s not immediately clear if programming in other Indian languages will also be available in the future. While further details about the upcoming service are hard to come by right now, it will be interesting to see whether it will be able to bring more customers to Flipkart’s bread-and-butter retail platform, which is exactly what the company is trying to achieve with its latest venture.
