Shemaroo Entertainment enters the OTT race

As the Indian over the top (OTT) platform space heats up, more and more players from the entertainment space are jumping on the OTT bandwagon anticipating huge scope for growth in the sector. The latest entrant in the space isShemaroo Entertainment which launched its own OTT offering – ShemarooMe, in Mumbai on Wednesday.

The platform will offer exclusive video content from a wide range of categories including Bollywood, devotional, Gujarati, Punjabi and children’s content. In a statement, the company said that the new product is aimed at the "asli" (real) Bollywood fan who likes to watch and re-watch his/her favourite content over and over. The statement also said that ShemarooMe aims to address the needs of common citizens with a taste for "masala" content.

The competition in the Indian OTT market is already cut-throat with nearly 35 players jostling for space. The company says it is betting on Indian language content as it foresees a significant uptick in demand for regional content going forward. “According to a Google-KPMG 2017 report, 75% of India’s internet user base will consist of Indian language internet users by 2021. It goes on to mention that India which had nearly 300 million smartphone users in 2017 is only going to have larger growth prospect with the number expected to cross 440 million by 2022,” Shemaroo said in a statement, adding that a slew of new offerings in regional content was just around the corner.

Commenting on the launch, Hiren Gada, CEO, Shemaroo Entertainment said, “This is a big leap for Shemaroo… While Bollywood - both classic and contemporary - is our core strength, we aim to bring a rich and diverse offering far beyond that for the underserved consumers and definitely do more to sustain the nostalgia economy.”

Priced at ₹49 per month and ₹499 a year for individual category plans and ₹99 per month and ₹999 per year for the all access pack, it is clear that ShemarooMe is trying to position itself in the same price range as popular competitors like Amazon Prime Video, Hotstar or ALTBalaji.

Zubin Dubash, COO, digital, Shemaroo Entertainment said, “From live to linear to VOD [video on demand] content, we have all forms of consumption options available for our customers. We will be expanding our OTT distribution through strategic partnerships, to offer exciting content across multiple platforms catering to the target audien