Global Takeoff to offer YuppTV video services next year

Will raise $15-million equity to fuel subscriber acquisitions, form overseas JVs

Global Takeoff, a Hyderabad-based provider of converged digital entertainment, communication and advertising, is in the process of rolling out its over-the-top (OTT) video services in the Indian market in the third quarter of the 2014 calendar, said chairman and chief executive officer Uday Reddy.

OTT refers to delivery of video and audio over the Internet without a multiple system operator being involved in the control or distribution of the content. Global Takeoff plans to offer its converged OTT content through YuppTV.com, its live Internet TV channel streaming platform, to the Indian homes having smart TVs.

“The product, which will be integrated with a set-top-box, will be ready by the second quarter of 2014. We are working out the modalities of pricing, which will probably be on a par with the current Indian direct-to-home or cable price points,” Reddy told Business Standard.

YuppTV currently delivers more than 150 Indian TV channels, 4,500 daily videos and over 600 movies, reaching out to six million viewers, mostly India diaspora, across South Asian countries, the US, Europe, Australia and Canada through paid subscription. At present, it offers free-to-air channels in India.

YuppTV is now one among the Top-5 downloaded app on Samsung TV and the only South Asian app out of the 11 applications that has been approved on Sony PlayStation3 and PlayStation4. It is set to be launched on Microsoft's XBox shortly.

According to Reddy, the proposed OTT services to be offered on public Internet in India would include movies-on-demand and Catch-Up TV, a video-on-demand service wherein television shows are available for a period of days after the original broadcast, besides live streaming of TV channels.

“This (OTT services) is the way the future of TV is seen now. We, however, will be a little cautious in the first year of launch as there are still challenges in terms of broadband deployment in India,” he said, adding the concept was expected to takeoff all of a sudden in a big way in the country in the next two years, with adequate broadband infrastructure and unlimited data plans in place by then.

Over-the-top services is already a mainstream in the US, with the third-party content providers being Netflix, Hulu, NowTV, myTV and WhereeverTV.

“We are in the process of raising $10 million-$15 million equity in three months. We intend to utilise the proceeds for subscriber acquisition, form joint ventures to roll out OTT services in West Asia countries and in Trinidad and Tobago, besides making small acquisitions here and there that would bring ethnic content to us,” he said, adding that the company was expecting its revenues to touch $10 million this year, as against $8 million in the last financial year.