MUMBAI: Keeping an eye on the rising consumption of mobile content, OTT service provider HOOQ is planning to enter the Indian market soon.
HOOQ is a joint venture between Singtel, Sony Pictures Television and Warner Bros Entertainment for OTT video service across Asia.
It recently signed a deal with Quickplay that powers premium video to any device.
Launched in the Philippines, HOOQ delivers Hollywood blockbusters and television series, as well as popular local movies and programmes, by enabling viewers to stream and download their favourite shows on their device of choice.
HOOQ will begin by rolling out progressively in the Singtel Group’s Asian footprint, including the Philippines, Indonesia, India and Thailand.
HOOQ CEO Peter G Bithos said, “Quickplay was a clear choice for HOOQ when you are building a business that needs to scale up to a footprint covering over a billion people. Their proven market leadership and experience in powering premium video allows us to provide quality viewing experiences and seamless integration especially when working across emerging markets and multiple partners.”
The OTT internet television market is steadily growing in India. Star India has had some success with its Hotstar app and so have companies like Zenga TV and DGvive. Singtel is planning to launch HOOQ in India and PCCW recently bought Vuclip. Tata Sky has also launched an anytime-anywhere service. Besides, there is also Ditto TV and YuppTV.
These successes notwithstanding, there are also challenges. One of these is defining windows of content. The others are cash flow and the right business model.
HOOQ has, thus, selected Quickplay’s managed services to operate the largest subscription-based OTT service in Asia. It will leverage Quickplay’s advanced virtual head-end, cloud economics, and experience in providing complex, multiscreen services for providers like AT&T, Bell and Verizon.
HOOQ viewers across Asia will enjoy personalised OTT experience across all devices, platforms, mobile, and WI-FI networks. Quickplay will deliver the fully hosted premium OTT video solution, providing a large library of multi-language content in Asia.
Quickplay founder and CEO Wayne Purboo said, “This is the largest OTT deployment of its kind in Asia. This level of scale and complexity is unmatched and is a service that Quickplay is uniquely positioned to deliver on. The HOOQ vision of securely bringing premium global and local content to Asian viewers—in the home or on the go—is truly disruptive and well aligned to Quickplay’s goal of enabling superior viewing experiences and providing the greatest choice of premium content to viewers anytime, anywhere.”
The solution initially includes the secure streaming of over 10,000 movies and TV series of encoded and optimised video-on-demand (VOD) content and adaptive streaming.
In addition, QuickPlay, in partnership with Evergent, is providing a distinct feature that enables HOOQ to leverage Singtel Group’s extensive telco billing relationships across Asia. This helps consumers to use a range of payment models including mobile post-pay contracts and pre-paid credits.