Mumbai: Eros Now, an over-the-top (OTT) South Asian entertainment platform owned by Eros STX Global Corp on Wednesday announced the extension of its partnership with Airtel. The alliance will bring Eros Now's content library to Airtel Xstream Premium, a newly launched aggregation-oriented video streaming service by Airtel.
The partnership is in line with Eros Now's strategy to focus on direct-to-consumer relationships while strengthening and expanding key distribution partnerships. As part of this collaboration, Eros Now will also be available across new bundled offerings to customers on Airtel Xstream Android set-top-boxes and Airtel Xstream Fiber.
"Airtel users will get access to Eros Now's content of over 12,000 films, originals, music, and short-form content across languages and genres. All this will be accessible through a simplified search, customised recommendations and single access login on the Airtel Xstream Premium app on mobile and large screens (TV, tablet and PC)," said the statement.
“Video-on-demand has emerged as the key driver of data consumption on telecom networks making content and its delivery channel equally important and Airtel has been a market leader in video and 4G penetration," said Eros Now CEO Ali Hussein. "This partnership allows for a symbiotic play wherein both entities can analyse the customer data and precisely target subscribers with the content of their choice. The collaboration also entitles Eros Now to be a part of Airtel’s preferred channel network and further strengthens our leading position in the Hindi-speaking markets.”
As per a Redseer report, Hindi and other Indian languages dominated the comprehensive streaming growth. Hindi language content accounted for more than 50 per cent of the overall streaming in April-July 2020. This also indicates that video experience is becoming increasingly important to Indian consumers, hence any operator who provides greater video experience has an edge. As per the latest OpenSignal’s Mobile Network India Report, Airtel won the best video experience category nationally for the fifth time in a row.
"We are witnessing a huge surge in video consumption amongst our customers. And this growth is not limited to big cities but is also coming from smaller cities and towns," stated Airtel Digital CEO Adarsh Nair. "This strategic partnership with Eros Now enables us to provide the most sought-after content to consumers in the true heartland of India in their preferred language. It also allows us to enhance our offering and enrich our customer's digital experience."
