CJ ENM Co., South Korea’s entertainment powerhouse, is set to release its hit drama series on Amazon MX Player, an ad-based free over-the-top (OTT) platform in India, making inroads into the video streaming market of the world’s most populous country.
The company will begin sequentially rolling out 18 drama series, many of which have already achieved global success, on the free streaming platform, starting on Sept. 8. The releases will continue through 2026, CJ ENM said on Thursday.
Leading the lineup is Lovely Runner, the TV series that created a romance buzz in 2024, set to release on Sept. 8. Other titles to follow include My Lovely Liar, Wedding Impossible, Twinkling Watermelon and Delightfully Deceitful.
The content will be dubbed in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu, three of the country’s most widely spoken regional languages.
“The demand for global content, especially Korean dramas, has grown exponentially in India,” Amogh Dusad, director and head of content at Amazon MX Player, said in a statement released by CJ ENM.
“Through this partnership, we’re bringing 18 premium K-dramas — including recent blockbusters — to Indian audiences on AVOD, many of them for the very first time.”
India’s OTT market has been booming, fueled by low-cost subscription services and advertising-based free platforms, known as ad-supported video on demand (AVOD).
CJ ENM, the producer of Oscar-winning film Paradise, is expanding its global footprint, tapping into the global popularity of K-content.
The partnership between CJ ENM and Amazon marks their first official content package deal following the US e-commerce giant’s acquisition of India’s local OTT platform MX Player in 2024, said CJ ENM.
“It will be a key milestone in accelerating the global expansion of K-content,” the Korean company added in the statement.
In May, it formed a strategic partnership with Amazon Prime Video to distribute its content from popular dramas to newly produced series.
By Yeonhee Kim
yhkim@hankyung.com
Jennifer Nicholson-Breen edited this article.
