Airtel launches ‘IQ Video’ as one stop solution for OTT content developers

Learning from the challenges Airtel experienced on its video aggregation platform, the company has introduced a CPaaS solution to democratise video streaming in India. Airtel’s IQ Video is designed to facilitate entertainment companies and broadcasters to offer OTT video services with minimal investment by leveraging a secure video cloud platform. Raj TV, Eros Now are amongst the early adopters of Airtel IQ Video in India; CG Telecom in Nepal and Airtel are expecting to onboard over 50 companies on the platform in the coming year.

“We started development of Airtel IQ Video about a quarter ago. Under the Airtel IQ Video, we are offering a wide bouquet of services right from content lifecycle management & curation tools, personalised recommendations and search, subscriber management, monetisation capabilities (advertising, subscriptions), storage, DRM & analytics, multi-platform support (TV, mobile & web) and 24x7 customer support. Enterprises can pick and choose the services they want. With Airtel IQ Video, we are helping enterprises build a video streaming business at a fraction of the cost. And in this quarter, we have already worked with three customers including Raj TV, Eros Now and Nepal’s GC Telecom,” says Adarsh Nair, Chief Product Officer, Bharti Airtel in an interaction with Business Today.

For instance, Raj TV has used Airtel IQ Video to take the OTT route to serve increasingly digitally savvy consumers. Raj TV had a content library of over 30,000 hours with some of the best Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam films. Using Airtel’s IQ Video platform, all this content on tapes/analog formats was digitised and hosted on Airtel’s cloud platforms. And is being offered to its audiences both in India and across the globe through Raj TV’s own OTT app. “Importantly, we have been able to achieve this at a fraction of the cost in very quick time with access to the best technology that has ensured the user experience is excellent,” says  M Raajhendhran, Managing Director at  Raj Television Network.

India's video OTT market is expected to touch $12.5 billion by 2030, from $1.5 billion, currently (Source: RBSA Advisors) with growth coming from Tier II, III and IV cities and regional languages, a reason why Nair believes Airtel’s entry into this Video Platform as a Service (CPaaS) as just the right time. “Keeping these changing trends in sight, existing regional OTTs are looking to scale their technology platforms to accommodate the rising number of users. Traditional content providers such as regional TV broadcasters are looking to digitise their content libraries through OTT applications. Once we get this in India right, we will also be shipping to SAARC countries, South Asia, Middle East and Africa. If we get all this right, because of our structure, we will have phenomenal global growth. We already have 50 customers in our pipeline today and we already have a business ready next year, which just has to scale,” adds Nair.

As Airtel IQ Video brings an easy-to-use platform that can enable anyone to quickly build and scale their business in video streaming, Nair is hopeful of encouraging enterprises to focus on content while Airtel IQ Video anchors the end-to-end technology. The company expects to see more content startups and traditional content companies coming online and directly engaging with consumers digitally.

Airtel IQ Video is an extension of Airtel IQ, its cloud-based omnichannel communications platform, being used by brands to deepen engagement with customers through timely and secure communication.

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