
UPI AutoPay makes a big difference to OTT customer retention, says Bengali entertainment company SVF-backed video OTT player hoichoi’s co-founder Vishnu Mohta, as players in the 7-year-old streaming industry in India are turning their gaze towards strengthening bottomline.
The streaming business is known for high per-customer acquisition costs as players wooed customers to scale up. As the business is globally focussing more on profitability, a cascading effect of increased focus on the bottomline in India also is making players take a serious look at customer retention, content costs and subscription pricing.
“We are focusing as much on customer retention, if not more than customer acquisition,” Mohta told Business Today ahead of the platform’s content lineup announcement for their 7th year, which marks hoichoi’s foray into making theatrical films under their newly launched ‘hoichoi studio’. The film will later be streamed on the platform.
Kolkata-headquartered SVF Entertainment, set up in 1995, has interests in film production, television content production, film distribution, digital cinema, music, new media and movie theatres.
Pointing out that UPI accounts for about 70-80% of the payments on hoichoi, which is also the industry average, he further said: “When UPI becomes auto recurring, it makes a big difference. It will take a few more months to see how it plays out, but I’m confident it will further enhance retention.”
The UPI AutoPay, launched by the National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) in July 2020, currently allows users to make recurring transactions below Rs. 5,000 through UPI apps. It enables recurring payments such as bill payments, utility recharge, loan repayment, mutual fund investments, content subscription, grocery purchases, housing society payments and membership fees.
Mohta said hoichoi reached P&L profitability last year. “We are not looking at this as a high-profit business for another 2-3 years, but are focussing on expanding the customer base and content catalogue. This financial year our focus is on reaching little-to-no cash burn. We have not had any cash burn for the first six months.”
One of the key strategic approaches this year for the platform would be the expansion of its content syndication deals in more languages such as Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam. It has already partnered with JioCinema for Hindi-dubbed versions of its content.
Content lineup for hoichoi’s seventh year has 24 titles, including returning seasons of franchises and the web debut of several Bengali stars such as Mimi Chakraborty, Debashree Roy and Chiranjeet Chakraborty.
Besides, hoichoi has now launched its own studio to produce exclusive films for a theatrical release under 'hoichoi studios'. Its first film will star popular actors Abir Chatterjee and Paran Bandopadhyay under Debaloy Bhattacharya’s direction.
Mohta pointed to an “insane amount of hunger for content” among the audience, adding that some stories are better told, not in an episodic format, but as a feature. “Making a film is a bigger bet…It is not a pivot from acquiring films. This is just an added source of making content available on the platform."
hoichoi also plans to expanding to the Middle East, with an official launch scheduled in the UAE and Saudi Arabia by end of this year with a fresh pricing plan, an extensive marketing push and a content programming suitable with the sentiments and entertainment laws pertaining to each country, the press release said.