The Airtel Reliance Jio war doesn’t seem to be abating anytime soon. After launching and counter-launching an array of prepaid and postpaid bundled data plans, and wired broadband plans to retain and attract more customers, the fight between the two of the strongest teleservice providers of the Indian telecom industry has moved to another platform; web content driven data usage.
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Bharti Airtel’s Focus
Airtel is tightening its metaphorical belts to begin the long and hard war that it has ahead of it, with Reliance Jio. For the same purpose, the company has identified education and healthcare as the focal points of their content building endeavors. Regional music and videos would be part of its web platform too.
The telco speculates that the upcoming battle will be centered around content because, with data tariffs now slashed so spectacularly, it has lost its edge as an industry indicator in the current prevalent hyper-intensive environment.
In contrast, Mukesh Ambani led Reliance Jio is gearing towards the production of in-house shows and web-series for its millions of subscribers.
Strategic Alliances
To bring its plans to fruition, Airtel has been forging tactical partnerships with original content producers like Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Hotstar, Zee5, and Sony LIV, and others. In an interview, Sameer Batra, CEO, Content and Apps, Airtel, said that “We don’t believe in controlling the entire value chain end-to-end. There are a bunch of partnerships that we have got done which are exclusive to us on the video side, we want to stay away from producing content.”
The Plan of Action
Regional content is already playing well on Airtel TV. The telco plans to take things forward in the same direction by offering more variety to its subscribers so as to drive the data usage upwards. Airtel is planning to use its data science capabilities and machine learning to identify trends and customize their offerings accordingly.
According to Batra, based on assumptions one would think that Hindi music is the most popular choice of listeners of Delhi when in fact, it is not Hindi but rather Haryanvi and Bhojpuri music that rules the charts. Customers, he says, vary across different regions.
The Content Collaborations
Airtel has already joined hands with Shree Venkatesh Films of Kolkata to bring a catalog of Bengali content exclusively for Airtel TV. Airtel music app, Wynk Music, will feature Prajakta Shukre’s six original tracks produced exclusively by the popular folk singer and ex-Indian Idol contestant for the app.
Batra added that the company is planning to import a bundle of Nepali content in the form of their feature films and are thinking to partner with a couple more content creators to produce youth-oriented shows. With South Korean pop music such a rage among the current population, how can Airtel miss this golden opportunity? Riding the wave, the company is about to make a deal with Orchard, a global music label adding South Korean music to their regional content inventory as well.
In Q1 ended June, the average data usage per user in a month for Jio was 10.6GB while in comparison for Airtel it was only 7.8GB. Therefore, using content to drive data usage is the foci for Airtel. Besides video and music, says Batra, the company is aiming at education and health care as areas through which the telco can derive scale and lockdown customers.
The Competition
Reliance Jio is also looking at the education and healthcare sectors with the same eyes as Airtel. Besides which, the company integrated with music app Saavn in March to complement JioMusic, while it is still in the process of buying a 5 percent stake in Eros.
Batra concluded that Airtel’s current aim is to have one of their digital property on every smartphone, monetization, he says, will follow soon.
The post Reliance Jio to Produce In-house Web Series, Airtel Partners With Netflix, Hotstar to Drive Data Usage appeared first on MySmartPrice.
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