KOLKATA: The over-the-top (OTT) market is ripe for growth in India, the segment which has emerged as one of the most obvious winners in the pandemic time. Most OTT platforms in India have multiplied their user base over the last year. Zee5 was no exception as it also drew more viewers to its platform, but it may take some time before the paid subscription base is reflected in its overall revenue.
Zee5’s global monthly active users (MAU) and daily active users (DAU) have gone up to 72.6 million, 6.1 million respectively in q4 from 65.9 million, 5.4 million in the q3. Despite the growth, its revenue has declined to Rs 107.5 crore in the quarter from Rs 117.8 crore. However, EBITDA loss has come down to Rs 162.5 core from Rs 175.7 crore in q3.
The fall in revenue is on account of advertising, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (ZeeL) MD & CEO Punit Goenka said in a conference call post the earnings. But that is cyclical in nature, Goenka noted. Along with that, pending telco deal renewal is another reason for the drop in revenue. Moreover, the platform saw a bump up in revenue in the previous quarter because of the festive season, ZeeL investor relations, corporate strategy head Bijal Shah added.
However, Zee5 may see a better result in Q1 of FY22 as the blockbuster Radhe has premiered on the platform and management seems confident about the movie’s performance. “Radhe has done what we expected it to do for us,” Goenka highlighted saying the film has been quite successful for the platform. However, he did not delve into deeper numbers as it has been only a week since the release of the movie. The company hopes Zee5 revenues to move up in Q1 on the back of the film along with other reasons.
Predominantly, the platform’s MAUs and DAUs are coming from its own organic growth as telco partnerships are only on the subscription side. On the AVoD side, 90 per cent of users are coming from India as there are few international markets of Zee5 with an advertising model. As the platform plans to launch Zee5 in the UK, US, Europe market, those markets will only have a subscription-led model.
“We are seeing people moving to SVOD service (in India). It is slow but it is certainly heartening to see people who come to the funnel of catch up TV and then move to paid services,” Goenka added.
Zee5 last year took several new innovations like adding education content, gamification of shows, and launching short video segments. Goenka was asked on the call why Zee5 didn't continue its efforts in those segments. "We never got into e-learning, gamification itself. These initiatives were partner driven," he responded.
“Certainly, a lot of our content may not have succeeded or was not for the right audience base that we have seen but we have taken a relook at our entire strategy at Zee5. We planned to reduce the pricing to Rs 499 per year in line with what is happening in the market. That is one value proposition,” Goenka quipped.
“Other value proposition is going to be a focus on good quality content in the form of films as well as originals across multiple languages that we are going to focus on going forward,” he stated further. Goenka also remarked that Zee5 is going to focus on the tech platform significantly for it to be an app that can delight consumers.
