Bharti Airtel (Airtel) on Thursday has launched updated version of its video streaming service - Airtel Xstream Premium – aggregating content from 15 Indian and global video over the top (OTT’s) in one app with an introductory price of ₹149 per month and ₹1,499 per year, available exclusively to Airtel customers.
Airtel said it is targeting 20 million subscriptions through this disruptive offering and is collaborating with many more OTT players to make Airtel Xstream Premium the go to destination for digital entertainment in India.
Customers will get access to one of the largest catalogue of over 10,500 movies and shows plus live channels from SonyLIV, ErosNow, Lionsgate Play, Hoichoi, ManoramaMax, Shemaroo, Ultra, HungamaPlay, EPICon, Docubay, DivoTV, Klikk, Nammaflix, Dollywood, Shorts TV on Airtel Xstream Premium, the company said.
Airtel also offers a single app, single subscription, single sign-in, unified content search and artificial intelligence driven personalised curation for each user. Users can access Airtel Xstream Premium across mobiles, tablets, laptops through the app or web and on the TV through the Xstream set-top-box, it said.
“Airtel Xstream Premium is a game changing innovation to democratise OTT content in India by solving the key challenges of content discovery, affordability and distribution. As a unified digital platform, it’s a win-win proposition for customers and OTT players alike as we begin an exciting journey to make digital entertainment mainstream in India,” Adarsh Nair, Chief Executive Officer, Airtel Digital said.
For the content developers, this provides an opportunity to build distribution into the emerging market with Airtel’s scale and digital distribution capabilities.
Manish Aggarwal, Head - Growth and Monetisation, SonyLIV, said,“Our partnership with Airtel Xstream will bring premium content – from Originals, Movies, Sports and Sony India network content in all the leading languages and top shows from Hollywood to over 340 million Airtel customers.”
According to Media Partners Asia, by 2025, India’s OTT subscription market is expected to grow to $2 billion from the current $500 million. This will be led by 3X growth in subscriptions to around 165 million.
A large proportion of these new subscriptions will come from new users from tier-2 and 3 markets, it said. A number of high-quality content houses have launched their OTT apps to tap into this opportunity, but are facing pricing and distribution challenges, it added.