In the fifth year of its launch, Hoichoi has seen a surge in subscription and revenue.
According to Soumya Mukherjee, COO, Hoichoi, the OTT platform saw a 50 percent rise in revenue.
There is a 50 percent increase in the number of subscribers. We have seen a 40 percent increase in our international subscriber base in the past year. He said that monthly active users have grown at a rate of 40%.
The US, Australia, Canada, the UK and the Middle East all have higher average revenue per user than Bangladesh.
The platform is priced at Rs 1,000 in India. A monthly plan costs $10 a month in international markets.
The focus is overseas.
The overseas market contributes 40 percent to the overall revenue of the company.
A big part of the growth in the international market is due to world premiere movie releases. The buzz around these movies helps us in getting customers. In Bangladesh, we are creating more than a dozen originals in the coming year. We've done a lot of partnerships with them.
The platform is working with telecom companies in the region. The Southeast Asian market is one of the biggest markets for expansion. Sometime in the first quarter of next year, we're looking to get that done.
Revenue has grown due to growth in subscriptions. We grew at over 50 percent in FY22 and included revenue from partners and brands. The platform has grown in the range of 40-45 percent year-on-year and this financial year we should be growing around 60 percent.
The approach is bundled.
The company stopped licensing its content and bundled it with other companies in order to focus on acquisitions.
Original shows are not licensed. We would like to work with partners for distribution, but they have to bundle the service. After taking a big revenue hit, we got a lot of bundled partnerships which resulted in subscriptions growing and in turn overall revenues growing. The COO said that the library of content is not available all the time.
Fifty percent of the platform's revenues come from direct subscriptions and 45 percent from partners.
Adding more original stuff.
The original portfolio is being expanded. We have over 120 original shows. 25 new shows are going to be announced this year. Half of the shows are in production at this stage, 20 percent are complete and 30 percent are in the pre-production stage. We are also buying at least 15 movies. He said that they were looking to add more than 50 movies to their catalog.
The percentage of paying subscribers in the OTT video space is currently low and is expected to increase in the years to come.
It was less than 10 percent for video OTTs to pay subscribers.
In the subscription industry, paid subscribers are increasing year on year.
"From day one, we took the approach of not offering content for free or via the advertising model, and we have seen revenue increasing, which means my subscription rate is also increasing. In the third year, subscriptions on the platform grew at 30 percent and shouldnow grow at 60 percent," he said.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
