Indian OTT market is suddenly picking up momentum as big names are eyeing to capture users with big investments. Reports reveal that e-commerce giant Flipkart is looking to buy a stake in Hotstar to compete with rivals such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Voot among many others.
The talks have not reached an advanced stage and we are also not confident how much stakes Flipkart is looking to buy. Note that, Flipkart is also showing interest in Netflix for a potential alliance. Flipkart has earlier associated with Hotstar for a new video advertisement platform with Hotstar in July. Hotstar is also one of the Internet partners that Flipkart has chosen for its customer loyalty programme, Flipkart Plus.
Chief executive Kalyan Krishnamurthy is planning to launch the video streaming platform with a backup of a large audience as doing everything from starch isn’t that productive in this competitive market. A Hotstar representative reportedly denied about this deal.
“This query has no basis in facts. No such conversation is happening with Flipkart or any others. We are well resourced and on a velocity of growth that is ahead of almost every other consumer Internet company in India. As flattered as we are by the rumours, the service is too valuable for such conjectures to be even entertained,”
the Hotstar spokesperson said. “However, we remain open to partnerships that can help grow the Internet ecosystem in India and beyond,” he added.
The thing that makes us feel positive about this deal is Flipkart now has the support of Walmart, giving financial backup to acquire a stake in Hotstar. Hotstar is only valued at $265 million as of last month, and Flipkart can make up for this amount in a short period of time.
This would be a very clever strategic move as Amazon is clearly winning the battle due to Amazon Prime. Flipkart can redefine the e-commerce segment with faster deliveries and discounts and improvement in logistics. But creating a video streaming service from scratch will need a lot of patience for hiring producers, getting streaming rights, and then creating original content.
There are enough hints that Flipkart could indeed pick up a stake in a popular video streaming platform and what better choice than Hotstar one can find right now? Let’s just wait and watch see what happens, but one thing is for sure that Indian OTT space is certainly going to see some very big deals in the near future.
