Viu, PCCW Media’s OTT video service, has hit 6 million monthly active users (MAU) across its markets in March this year. The company claims that this represents a 50 percent growth from its four million in November 2016. Since launch in October 2015, Viu has forayed into several markets including in Oman, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, Kuwait, Egypt and Bahrain in the Middle East & North Africa (MENA) region. Some of the other markets it is present in are Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, India, Indonesia and the Philippines.
For Viu, one of its advantages is the engagement with its users, who as per company officials spend almost 100 minutes a day on the platform. “This stickiness helps propel the business of our telco partners, benefits content providers, drives subscriptions and boosts the consumption of online advertisements for advertisers who leverage Viu’s regional platform to reach the Millennials who are more receptive to digital advertisements,” said Janice Lee, Managing Director, PCCW Media Group.
Viu operates on a dual model of an ad-supported tier and a premium subscription tier of service. Industry research company, Statista, recently published a study on revenue estimates of video subscription and online video advertising which showed strong CAGR of subscription and online video advertising revenue, reaffirming the rationale of Viu’s two pronged monetization strategy.
Without divulging numbers, Ms Lee stated that Viu’s subscription and advertising revenue growth has exceeded the industry’s estimate of market growth. She credits the overall market growth of online video consumption and Viu’s product and content proposition for this.
Viu had recently launched Viu Originals as a creative initiative to enhance user engagement, adding value for both telcos and advertisers. However, most of this content is still Asia focussed comprising Korean, Chinese, Indian and Indonesian productions. The platform yet has to add any content specific to the MENA region.
