EMERGING markets, like the Philippines, will be a major source of growth for subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) seller Hooq Digital Holdings Pte. Ltd.
In a news briefing last week, CEO Peter Bithos said he sees the bloc composed of developing countries having a big potential “because of its huge population—1.6 billion, heavy usage of gadgets and big number of young people.”
“The emerging market is special for [us] because it has immense potential,” Bithos said on October 6 in Makati City. “In Hooq, we want to say a billion movies for a billion people.”
Bithos led the local launch of the firm’s so-called hybrid model ad-free premium service the company said would lure more consumers to try out the service. He said the SVOD service “was built in Asia for Asia” and “takes on a mobile-first user experience to cater to the voracious demands of mobile users.”
Bithos said to widen the subscriber base, the company is using the sachet concept (tingi) of selling. For a weekly subscription, a subscriber needs to pay P59.00.
He said they initially target the market in India, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand. Later, Bithos said they will enter Vietnam and Singapore. Bithos added that pilot episodes of all TV series will now be free for all registered users even after their free-trial period has ended. This extended sampling gives the customers the power to decide if they would like to continue to watch the rest of series before they pay for the subscription, he explained.
“We are very excited to introduce this hybrid model as it gives customers more control over their purchase decision,” Bithos said. “This hybrid model is a result of what we have [learned] over the past year after studying usage patterns and speaking to numerous customers and understanding what they want in a video-on-demand service.”
Bithos said Hooq designed a new app interface that he claims was developed based on the customer’s needs. “Designed with the habits of the social and digital natives in mind, the mobile-first release boasts a brand-new real-time content feed and personalized recommendation engine that makes discovering new favorites easier than ever,” Bithos said. “Furthermore, there is an improved search engine, wish lists [for future viewing] and optimized content delivery for significantly faster app start and streaming start times.”
He claims the new app has been developed by the company’s in-house team for nearly nine months and is backboned by a back-end framework focused on faster streaming. “We know our customers are mostly enjoying [our services] on their mobile devices, so it was a natural decision that we enhanced the entire platform to give our customers a mobile-first experience,” Hooq Philippines Country Manager Jane Cruz-Walker said.