Telugu video streaming platform Aha Video, owned by movie producer Allu Aravind, is banking on its premium subscription providing and model integrations as an alternative of simply pure promoting income to realize breakeven by December-end.
In an interview, Ajit Thakur, chief government, mentioned the corporate is now beginning to additionally provide Tamil content material, moreover seeking to create content material as a studio for different platforms. Income doubled in 2022 in comparison with 2021, he mentioned.
Media trade specialists, nevertheless, pointed to the area of interest attraction of such language-specific companies and mentioned consolidation is the one manner ahead for such platforms in India’s fragmented OTT market.
“Telugu stays our core providing, and we don’t wish to take our focus off it and lose subscribers, however we’re making gradual and regular progress within the Tamil market, too, the place we entered barely late however noticed the primary indicators of development within the October quarter,” Thakur mentioned.
Coming into the Tamil market has helped the platform cater to the Indian diaspora throughout Southeast Asia, he mentioned, including that worldwide audiences are inclined to fetch greater common income per person (Arpu).
Final August, Aha launched Aha Gold, a premium annual subscription providing created to ship 4K extremely HD video streaming mixed with Dolby audio to reinforce the general buyer expertise, bolstering income. “We’re over 12 million month-to-month lively customers now, plus there’s our subscription providing and our integrations with manufacturers, so we must always be capable to monetize the service effectively and breakeven by the tip of the yr,” Thakur mentioned.
The service, which featured hits similar to the truth present Unstoppable 2 with NBK, and the unique movie Senapathi in 2022, has Telugu Indian Idol Season Two and authentic movie Sathi Gani Rendu Ekuralu lined up within the coming months. Aha can also be eyeing stay information and short-form content material later within the yr.
Whereas most streaming companies in India want to reduce prices as paid subscription development stays muted, Thakur mentioned the platform would keep on with its mannequin of bringing out one new title each week. “Of their eagerness to win, a number of greater gamers had began with high-cost buildings which weren’t sustainable. We’ve acknowledged that OTT sits someplace between TV and movies, so we haven’t overspent. Our budgets aren’t at par with movies however three to 5 occasions that of tv. Frequency is necessary for the client to maintain coming again, so we’re not reducing down,” Thakur mentioned. He, nevertheless, mentioned that the platform would keep away from buying big-budget movies, that are turning unviable presently.
To make sure, the specialists famous that language-specific media companies apps couldn’t afford to promote their content material at costs on a par with the larger platforms, placing stress on their Arpus. “The opposite problem is that international corporations are more and more allocating greater budgets to regional content material,” mentioned Karan Taurani, senior vice chairman at Elara Capital Ltd.
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Supply: Live Mint