- Flipkart appointed Neha Toteja as the head of OTT service.
- The company plans to tap 200 million internet users who are new to e-commerce in a smooth way.
Recently, Walmart-owned Indian E-commerce giant Flipkart announced the revamping of its app. This decision is taken in hindsight of attracting a new consumer base. The new features include video-content, audio-visual assistant and support for the Hindi language.
This raises a question will it enter the OTT segment in future? Their competitor has already entered the video streaming market and has created a niche and huge audience for itself.
Recently, Flipkart appointed Neha Toteja as the head of OTT service. The decision behind the move to revamp the app is to have an engagement with the users.
The company plans to tap 200 million internet users who are new to e-commerce in a smooth way. This of customers don’t watch video content due to payment constraints, to address that set of consumers, the company will offer curated content in form of web series, short-form and long-form videos on the app.
Although the company rejected the speculation of entering the OTT market. Their strategy is different and they are not in competition with any OTT platform.
Flipkart won’t launch a separate application to stream video content, integrating it with the existing app. It is expected to be running around October, during the festive season.
Industry experts are saying that Flipkart is trying to get users to spend more time on its App and one of the ways is by adding the original content/programs on the app.
“Flipkart’s decision to revamp its app is aimed at making its mobile-based shopping experience seamless and enhanced. As video consumption on mobile increases, the entry of Flipkart into the video content is a logical extension of the brand,” opines Prateek Kumar, CEO & Managing Director, NeoNiche
He also mentions, the fact that Netflix also rolled out the mobile-only subscription plan for the Indian market is the proof of more time spent by users.
Flipkart is strengthening its stronghold in the retail market through mobile which will help the brand’s reach and have a positive impact on sales.
Advith Dhuddhu, CEO of creative ad tech agency AliveNow says, “Flipkart plans to have the complete library of content for free it could be a very interesting move. The most important thing is that they focus on trying to get great original content for regional languages because, for English language, Netflix and Amazon Prime are hard to beat,”.
The overall revenue recorded by Indian OTT market is Rs. 4,462 crores with Hotstar, Zee5, ALTBalaji, Netflix, Amazon Prime being top players.
