Amazon Prime Video is reassessing its South East Asia content strategy, cutting back on original shows and people, while vowing to remain bullish in other Asian markets, including India, which is a big playground for the streamer.

According to a report in Deadline, which quotes an internal company note from Prime Video’s Singapore-based Vice President, Asia Pacific, Gaurav Gandhi, the streamer is “decreasing investments in South East Asia (SEA) and moving to a leaner local operating model to support the SEA territories.”

“In effect, this means an exit from the local originals game and a major reduction in headcount at the Singapore office, with almost all staff from this side of the business to exit. We understand programs and films from the region set to launch for this year and 2025 or in production are unaffected. They will continue to filter through, but no new originals are coming,” stated the Deadline report (https://deadline.com/2024/01/amazon-studios-prime-video-layoffs-southeast-asia-1235733743/amp/).

Instead, Prime Video Southeast Asia will move to a model of licensing local and pan-regional content — particularly from South Korea, the Japanese anime market and India — alongside its US offering, Deadline added.

Gandhi’s note to staff confirmed David Simonsen, Director Prime Video in Southeast Asia will continue to lead the scaled-back Singapore team, “working even more closely with our centralized business teams.”

In his note, according to Deadline, Gandhi, who was earlier heading the India ops, added there would be “no change in our investment focus in our other APAC territories including Japan and India.”

On January 10, Reuters had reported that Amazon.com will lay off several hundred employees in its streaming and studio operations, it said in an internal note as companies extend their massive job cuts over the past two years into 2024.

The staff facing exit at Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios in the Americas will be informed on Wednesday and in most other regions by the end of the week, the Reuters report had stated.

The online retail behemoth last year cut more than 27,000 jobs as part of a wave of U.S. tech layoffs after the industry hired heavily during the pandemic.

“We’ve identified opportunities to reduce or discontinue investments in certain areas while increasing our investment and focus on content and product initiatives that deliver the most impact,” Mike Hopkins, senior vice president of Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios, told employees in a note seen by Reuters.

The company has spent aggressively in recent years to bolster its media business, including the $8.5 billion deal for MGM and around $465 million on the first season of ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ on Prime Video in 2022.