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There will be 2.5 billion people with smartphones in the emerging markets, excluding China and India by 2020. For most of them, that will be their primary television screen, their full cable TV. In many countries, the cable TV is not reaching the mass market and the internet TV revolution is almost bypassing the traditional cable business.

What is iflix’s business?

We are trying to aggregate a product specific to emerging markets alone. iflix is not a streaming product at all, but simply to “download and watch offline”. Piracy also works the same way. Most people in emerging markets don’t have consistent internet access. Neither can they afford 4G mobile data. The way they tend to access the internet is by sharing Wi-fi, at an internet cafe, a friend’s home or elsewhere.

iflix is not based on real-time streaming but the ability to download and watch your favourite shows when you’re offline. We’re trying to build a product that can actually compete with piracy. People pirate because they want access to great shows that they can’t find anyway. That’s the need we’re trying to meet.

What is iflix’s strength?

What makes a company is our customers and not the shareholders. It’s easier to raise capital than to make customers happy. The honest strength of iflix is that it simply works. That’s the number one feedback that we receive.

When you’re obsessed with emerging markets, you’re able to build a great product. We have a very broad range of content and we use piracy data to inform us of what’s required for each market. The content is then censored and subtitled according to market segment. While consumers often compare us to Netflix, we are actually a very different product and experience altogether. We cost US$2 to $3 per month for 1500 seasons of 800 TV shows, 3000 movies, 3000 hours of kids’ content and 1500 hours of Korean content. For every different market (Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia), it’s also 1500 to 2500 hours of local content.

What is the depth of your library?

We have about 15,000 hours of content in each market. About half is Western, 25% to 30% is regional based of Korean and Chinese dramas and Japanese anime and another 20% of local content. This defers from market to market.