Bharti Airtel (“Airtel”), India’s premier communications solutions provider, today took a giant leap towards democratizing and growing the Digital Entertainment ecosystem in India with the launch of its new video streaming service – Airtel Xstream Premium.
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 appx 165 mn. A large proportion of these new subscriptions will come from new users from tier 2/3 markets. A number of high quality content houses have launched their OTT apps to tap into this opportunity, but are facing pricing and distribution challenges.
For the customers today, dozens of OTT entertainment app options are available to choose from; which are offering them the latest content. However, customers end up managing multiple apps and subscriptions simultaneously.
Airtel Xstream Premium launch, unlocks the exciting world of Video Streaming entertainment, for India’s growing tribe of digitally connected customers, with its latest launch addressing just what they wanted.
Firstly, it aggregates content from 15 Indian and global video OTT’s in one app. Customers will get access to one of the largest catalogue of over 10,500 movies & shows plus LIVE channels from SonyLIV, ErosNow, Lionsgate Play, Hoichoi, ManoramaMax, Shemaroo, Ultra, HungamaPlay, EPICon, Docubay, DivoTV, Klikk, Nammaflix, Dollywood, Shorts TVon Airtel Xstream Premium.
Secondly, it offers a great experience with a single app, single subscription, single sign-in, unified content search and AI driven personalized 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.
All of this content is available exclusively to Airtel customers at an attractive price of just Rs. 149*per month.
For the content developers, this provides an opportunity to build distribution into the emerging market with Airtel’s scale and digital distribution capabilities.
Commenting on the launch Adarsh Nair, CEO – Airtel Digital said: “Airtel Xstream Premium is a game changing innovation to democratize 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.”
Airtel 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.