PCCW Media’s Viu adds another 2 million active users in just four months

viu

PCCW Media’s pan-regional OTT video service Viu has reached 6 million monthly active users (MAU) across its markets as of March this year, representing a 50% growth from 4 million as of November 2016.

The numbers represent viewers in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Oman, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, Kuwait, Egypt and Bahrain.

“We are excited with the rapid expansion of Viu around the region both in terms of the number of markets we serve as well as the speed of market penetration,” said Janice Lee, managing director of PCCW Media Group. “It is indeed very encouraging to see the high engagement with our users who spend almost 100 minutes a day viewing their favourite content on Viu. 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.”

Viu – which launched in November 2015 – makes its money from two business models: an ad-supported tier (AVOD) and a premium subscription tier (SVOD). Industry research company Statista recently published a study on revenue estimates of video subscription and online video advertising that showed strong CAGR of subscription and online video advertising revenue:

Revenue estimation of video subscription and online video advertising (2015-2020)

2015 rev
(USD mil)
2016 rev
(USD mil)
2017 rev
(USD mil)
2018 rev
(USD mil)
2019 rev
(USD mil)
2020 rev
(USD mil)
15-20
CAGR
Subscription
(SVOD)
169 211
(↑24.8%)
262
(↑24.2%)
326
(↑24.4%)
405
(↑24.2%)
501
(↑23.7%)
24.3%
Advertising
(AVOD)
433 599
(↑38.3%)
818
(↑36.6%)
1,118
(↑36.7%)
1,537
(↑37.5%)
2,089
(↑35.9%)
37.1%

* Including Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Saudi Arabia.
Source: Digital Marketing Outlook, Statista.

Those numbers indicate that Viu is on the right track in terms of its monetization strategy, Lee said. “Benefiting from the overall market growth of online video consumption and based on a strong product and content proposition, Viu’s subscription and advertising revenue growth has exceeded the industry’s estimate of market growth.”

Meanwhile, Viu announced it is boosting its content strategy in Asia-Pacific by introducing Viu Originals, an initiative to further enhance user engagement, adding value for both telcos and advertisers.

The initiative will leverage PCCW Media’s production expertise and experience to develop Korean, Chinese, Indian and Indonesian productions.

Viu has entered into an agreement with SYS Productions in relation to the parties’ collaboration in producing a program under the Viu Originals initiative entitled “Song Ji Hyo’s Beauty Views“, which is to be hosted by a celebrity from the popular Korea variety show Running Man.

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