Vuclip launches VOD service Viu in India

After compatriot Netflix entered India in January this year, California based Vuclip has launched its over-the-top service in India

After launching its over-the-top (OTT) services in Malayasia, Hong Kong and Singapore over the past couple of months, Vuclip has introduced Viu in India. This is the second OTT service announced in as many weeks, and the third in the current calendar. Last week, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (ZEEL), announced the launch of its second OTT platform OZEE under its subsidiary Zee Digital Convergence and in January, American major Netflix started services in India.

The service launched with around 42,000 hours of content across Bollywood, English, regional and music. It has recent titles like Jazbaa, Singh is Bling, Hunterr, Main Tera Hero and Holiday among others. English television titles are a mix of products out of the UK and US and include Critical, War and Peace and Olympus. Viu also features around 3,000 hours of music in the form of music videos from Bollywood and western artists like Nicki Minaj, Britney Spears and Marvin Gaye.

"We are following a localisation and local content strategy for all the markets we are present in. For India, Bollywood is an important piece of content and so is music. This strategy will extend to original content as well, as and when we have it," says Arun Prakash, COO, Vuclip.

Viu has forged content partnerships with top production houses and content owners such as Reliance Big Entertainment Pvt Ltd, Sony Music, Zee Digital Convergence, Tips Industries Ltd, Balaji Motion Pictures, Rajshri Entertainment, Unisys Infosolutions, Shemaroo, Anand Audio, and BBC Worldwide.

The OTT platform follows a free-mium model for business where some of the content is available for free, while some premium content is available behind a pay wall. In order to access the premium content (for example the latest blockbusters), users need to sign up/register for the service. Much like Netflix, there is a one month free trial period, after which users have to pay Rs 99 per month. However, there is no tiered pricing, as is the case with Netflix.

Prakash explains that the price point is the result of Vuclip's experience and insights from the data it has collected in its eight years of existence.

FreeCharge will be a preferred payment wallet partner for Viu and will offer a free one-month trial subscription as well as offer cash back deals for premium subscribers. eBay India Pvt. Ltd. has also signed on as a strategic distribution partner and will offer various packages and bundles related to Viu.

Viu, built on Vuclip's patented Dynamic Adaptive TranscodingTM technology, leverages Vuclip's eight-year history of providing streaming video on demand entertainment experiences to emerging markets. These eight years have provided a wealth of consumer insights, as well as a best in class approach to content editorial and curation for ease of discovery and consumption. Content is kept highly secure using world class digital rights management technologies integrated with industry leading service providers Verimatrix and Vualto.

The OTT space has seen a lot of action in the past one year as Star India brought out the big guns for the launch of hotstar, followed by announcements by Viacom18 (Voot), Ronnie Screwvala (Arre) and Balaji Telefilms (ALT).