WeTV, Tencent’s subsidiary streaming platform in China, continues to conquer more countries in Southeast Asia, with more content and adding more distribution players to reach more users. Since 2018, the Asian giant considered facing the streaming platforms from the West, with an aggressive expansion.
In Indonesia, the service reaches its third anniversary, presenting Mandarin content, and local wisdom titles through the WeTV Original benchmark.
‘In Indonesia, WeTV has been at the barefront. Not only as the top platform for Chinese content but also for other Premium Asian entertainment such as Korean and Japanese content for Indonesian audiences’ said Lesley Simpson, Country Manager for WeTV and iflix Indonesia.
In this territory, the service began to produce local original content, which has been widely popular among young people, since due to its socioeconomic condition, Indonesia is a country with a strong mobile consumption, this terminal being one of the most used to consume streaming content. ‘In Indonesia, statistically, there is a large percentage of OTT consumption via smartphones, compared to other markets in Southeast Asia. And that’s why our content team is so dedicated to this market,» Simpson explained.
In Indonesia, WeTV is committed to producing local content through strategic partners with different local production houses. ‘Various WeTV Original titles have been successfully appreciated by Indonesian audiences. One of them is the remake of the soap opera Tersanjung, produced by MVP Pictures and Dapur Film; or the WeTV Original web series Cinta Friti‘, commented Simpson.
In addition, the executive also mentioned some of their recent Indonesian award-winning titles, the WeTV Original Little Mom, which was a trend in 22 countries, also Layangan Putus, which was also a success in Indonesia, been watched more than 15 million times in one day. ‘We are trying to bring a new level of Original productions in Indonesia through a local production strategy’, expressed the exec.
WeTV operates under freemium and subscription models, and both strategies are very worked in this market: On one hand, they have an AVOD level, that allows users to consume by Ad insertion, and on the other hand, they have a mature subscription (WeTV VIP) level that offers key features like exclusive content, early access to new titles, download option, offline visualization mode, 4K and Dolby Amos audio content, among others. ‘For us, it is very important to have these features, because it is the way that we approach our audience’, pointed Simpson.
The executive also mentioned that regarding the AVOD level, they made improvements to the platform, in alliance with a North American fintech that build the Advertising interface option for commercial clients. ‘Our offer for our advertisers is 360 degrees because today we can offer brand placement in different ways within the application, and this does not interrupt the viewing experience’, remarked the exec.
In 2021, WeTV achieved a significant milestone of over 60 million downloads globally, a 31% growth as compared to 2020. Additionally, the number of WeTV’s monthly active users (MAU) has been growing exponentially year-on-year. From 2020 to 2021, WeTV saw a 67% spike in MAU, and an impressive leap of 95% in WeTV VIP users. These demonstrate WeTV’s success in delivering first-class entertainment experience across an extensive range of genres to its viewers. Renowned international brands and agencies across multiple industries have also tapped WeTV for the purpose of reaching out to their target audiences.
