HOOQ, Asia’s first and largest video-on-demand service, announced that it is now available in Singapore for just $8.98 per month. HOOQ is a start-up venture established in Singapore back in January 2015 between Singtel, Sony Pictures Television and Warner Bros., aimed at driving the entertainment revolution and changing the way Asians consume entertainment. It is the first time in Asia that three media power houses have joined forces to empower customers with unlimited online streaming access to top Hollywood, Asian and Kids movies and TV series anytime, anywhere and on any device. These include computers, smartphones, tablets, set-top boxes, smart TVs via Google Chromecast and all Apple devices.
At the same time, HOOQ announced a holistic partnership with Singtel that enables Singtel’s prepaid, postpaid and broadband customers to access HOOQ as part of bundled service packages. In a phased launch, HOOQ will be available to Singtel prepaid customers first and the other bundles will be available to postpaid and broadband customer progressively over the next few months. Today, prepaid customers who purchase an eligible prepaid data plan will enjoy access to over 15,000 Indian, Indonesian and Filipino movies and TV series. Prepaid data plans start from as low S$7 for 1GB over seven days. Customers can visit www.singtel.com/prepaid for more information. Singtel postpaid, broadband and TV customers can look forward to exclusive HOOQ deals on Singtel’s video portal, Cast, in the first quarter of 2017.
HOOQ’s innovative business model combines the best of subscription services, which are ad-free, and freemium models, which do not charge for their services but serve up advertising to customers. The introduction of such a hybrid model now allows customers to sample a premium service at no cost. Pilot episodes of all TV series will now be free for all registered users even after their free trial period has ended. Customers can now catch pilot episodes from Once Upon a Time, Devious Maids, The Mentalist, Castle etc. whenever they hit the service. This extended sampling gives the customers the power to decide if they would like to continue to watch the rest of series before they pay for the subscription. The award-winning service provides Singaporeans with a selection of over 20,000 of movies and TV series for their entertainment.
In addition, HOOQ now boasts the largest selection of kids titles through partnerships with the biggest names in family entertainment, including Viacom, Hi-5, Hasbro, Turner and Endemol Shine to bring some of the most popular kids titles that Singaporean families would love
HOOQ’s newly released app interface boasts a mobile-first user experience that has been designed and built from extensive customer beta testing and usability research to derive a customer-centric experience, given that over 80% of customers are using HOOQ on their mobile devices. The new app has been in development by HOOQ’s in-house team for nearly nine months and it is using a new back-end framework that is focused on a faster and higher quality streaming experience for the customer. In addition to the current support of iOS, Android, Web, Chromecast and Android Set-top Box, HOOQ will also be available on Airplay and mobile web.
