Another VOD service for Indonesia

By Ervina Anggraini May 30, 2016

Aims to bring Asian content to Indonesia and vice versa
Partnerships with Telkom, Telkomsel for free access

(L-R) Telkom Indonesia VP of Marketing and Sales Jemmy V. Confindo, Vucilp advisor Ilham Habibie, Vuclip Inc. CEO Nickhil Jakatdar, PCCW Media Group Managing Director Janice Lee, Telkomsel VP Prepaid & Broadband Marketing Ririn Widaryani, and Samsung Indonesia Product Marketing Head IT & Mobile Denny Galant

PCCW Media Group is bringing its over-the-top (OTT) Viu service to Indonesia. The Hong Kong-based telecommunications company PCCW Ltd had already launched the same service in Hong Kong in December last year, in Malaysia in February and a month earlier in Singapore.

Viu is a video-on-demand (VOD) service that will heat up the video streaming market in the country. Thus far, the market has been dominated by regional players like Catcha Group’s iflix from Malaysia, Singapore-based Singtel’s Hooq and the US giant Netflix.

According to PCCW Media Group managing director Janice Lee, the service has been “wildly successful” in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia. “Year back, our mission significantly changed with fast growing consumption through high-speed connectivity and fast adoption smartphone,” she said.

“We offer local content so our expectation with our launch in Indonesia is that it will be equally successful, especially with partnerships with Telkom, Telkomsel, and Samsung,” she told during the launch on May 26th.

Before launching the service, Janice claimed the company did research to get local insight. Just like other countries in South-East Asia, Indonesia is also being exposed to a Korean series ‘fever’. “53% to 80% of viewers surveyed across Singapore, Malaysia and other markets like Jakarta, watch Korean drama on a regular basis. On average our users spend 1.7 hours for video streaming per day,” she added.

The service offers 15,000 hours of TV series programming with non-stop 24 hours Bahasa Indonesia subtitles and 8 hours of English subtitles. To fulfill the need for K-dramas, Viu has partnerships with four giant studios KBS, CJ, SBS, and MBC.

Vuclip founder and chief executive officer, Nickhil Jakatdar stated that the company will expand the TV series category to Thai and Japanese. “Thus far, we also provide Korea, Bollywood, Taiwan, Chinese and Indonesia series. We will expand the category in the nearest future,” Nickhil said.

As a multi-platform service, Viu is compatible with desktop, mobile browser, mobile app for Android and iOS. By bringing local content, Just like any other VOD service, Viu also offers free access to all content, ad-free after downloading the app.

Telkom IndihHome Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) subscribers can automatically enjoy 30 days free access. Users that registered for a 30Mbps package or above can automatically get free access for a year.

Meanwhile, Telkomsel VP Prepaid & Broadband Marketing said that the company will make a bundling scheme for Viu soon. “For now, users can experience the same free access. We will prepare special bundling package to give faster access and more convenience experience in streaming videos,” Ririn said.

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