Indian digital giant Paytm is now looking to build a content war to take on rivals Amazon and Flipkart by launching its own (OTT) service. The e-commerce player has started the hiring process for this.
“Paytm has been looking at this space (video service) for some time but it is only now that the plans to set up a team are formulating,” said a highly placed source with direct knowledge of the development. “The idea is to have multiple services, from wallet to shopping to video to attract more customers and boost engagement.”
Note that, Paytm already has an existing tie-up with Yupp TV, which allows the company to offer some live TV channels to consumers.
However, it is a necessary move if the company wants to compete with big players like Amazon which already provides video and music streaming through Prime Video and Amazon Music.
Flipkart is also planning to produce originals and may also initiate talks with existing video over-the-top (OTT) players for content tie-ups to allow the company to offer a paid subscription service like Amazon Prime.
Experts believe that if foreign players are forcing Indian companies to follow them. Also, content for e-commerce companies helps in bringing more customers and builds loyalty to the brand. In a way, content is the new marketing move for these companies.
The rise of Indian OTT space
The Indian OTT space has seen a major boost in the last couple of years after the introduction of Jio, which made data prices cheap and added many first-time internet users.
“As the markets and businesses are converging, it is all about share of wallet and share of time of the consumers. Especially for companies in telecom and e-commerce sectors, which have a direct connection with their customers, it makes sense to add original content in the offering,” said Sameer Nair, chief executive at Applause Entertainment, a content studio owned by Aditya Birla Group chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla.
It will be interesting to see how Bollywood movies and TV channels get impacted by this rise and how they will tackle the changes in the viewing habits of audience.
