Hoichoi to up its reach via more strategic partnerships & OTT bundling: Soumya Mukherjee

Hoichoi, a leading vernacular OTT platform recognised globally, completed five years on September 20, 2022. Over the past year, the platform witnessed a growth of 50% in direct subscriptions, with a 20% increase in month-on-month watch time, during the post lockdown period. Further it became the only platform to create more than 100 originals in a specific language. August 2022, marked the month with the highest direct subscriptions for hoichoi across all its markets – India, Bangladesh and internationally surpassing that during the lockdown period.

As it steps into its sixth year, it has announced a content slate of 25 new shows (21 from India and 4 from Bangladesh), even as it aims to deliver content that also falls outside the bracket of detective thrillers and family dramas which audiences greatly prefer. New experimental genres have been added to the content mix along with the tried and tested ones in order to cater to the audiences across all strata.

Being a customer-centric brand, hoichoi aims to not just take the audiences through quality storytelling but convey meaningful messages as well. Hoichoi attributes its ability to create high quality content to its parent organisation SVF Entertainment and its values surrounding customer centricity.

Over the next decade, the overall OTT space is predicted to grow at a CAGR of over 20% and reach $13-15 billion. The SVOD market is expected to grow from $0.8 billion to reach $2.1 billion. Along with top creators such as Srijit Mukherjee, Anirban Vhattacharya, Dhrubo Banerjee, Sahana Dutta and others, Arindam Sil and Raj Chakraborty also start their OTT journey with hoichoi this year.

In conversation with Adgully, Soumya Mukherjee, COO, hoichoi, speaks about the OTT platform’s five years in the market, the idea with which hoichoi was created, the growth journey, the road ahead, and more. Excerpts...

Five years back when you started, what was the OTT market like? How have you seen the OTT ecosystem evolve over the years?

FIve years back, when hoichoi started, we were the first vernacular OTT in the market. Making the decision to create content in just a single language, seemed a little too brave and borderline foolish to the masses, but we were confident in our idea. Bengali, for those of us who don't know, is one of the highest spoken languages in the world, with over 250 million Bengalis across the globe. Not only that, there’s an entire country that speaks the language – Bangladesh. So, our vision was set and we went ahead to be the pioneer of the vernacular OTT ecosystem in India.

The Industry has definitely evolved over the years and the change has been positive, to say the least. Firstly, the entire OTT space attained a major boom during the lockdown, newer and quality contents and talents got their due recognition, and the space between screens vanished. Also, vernacular content started attaining pan-India recognition, which was long overdue.

How did you achieve this dominance in the Bengali content streaming space?

There are a few factors to this. Firstly, being a wing of the largest production house in the industry, really helps create higher quality content, as we have in-house access to superior production quality and talents as well. Secondly, and most importantly, we are an extremely customer centric brand, where we take into account the preferences and feedback of our customers very seriously and incorporate them. Hence, expanding and retaining our audience bases and growing accordingly, helps us maintain our leadership, not only in the Bengali streaming space, but in the vernacular streaming space as a whole.

How has the TG expanded over the years as during the pandemic, viewers increased? How do you engage with this TG? What is the retention strategy for longer consumption hours on your platform?

August 2022 has been the month with the highest direct subscriptions for hoichoi across all three of our markets – India, Bangladesh and International markets. This has surpassed our rise during the lockdown as well. Over the past year, hoichoi has seen a 50% growth in direct subscriptions with a 20% increase in streams in the post lockdown period.  There has been a 31% rise in watch time, 40% rise in monthly active users, 30% rise in international subscriber base and hoichoi continues to have one of the highest refresh rates in India for a single language.

When it comes to engaging with our TG, we have a very effective strategy in place and it's simple. Make our customers the crux of our decision making process and ensuring they have the best viewing and user experience. hoichoi is the only platform that has a 24 x 7 live customer support chat system and an active helpline number that customers can resort to, to get their complaints and opinions across is one of the biggest steps in the field. Apart from that hoichoi also has facilities for in person customer support for those who need it. It doesn’t just end there, annual customer meet and greets, along with an effective feedback cycle ensures that our customers attain maximum convenience and satisfaction. This has led to stellar ratings on all app stores like Google Play, Apple Store, etc.

What is the content strategy? How do you select the content you put up on the platform? Are there any other languages you are looking to foray into other than Bangla?

hoichoi has always been a platform that aims to tell stories across various genres, stratas and regions, which is why we focus on onboarding top creators from the industry, who can help create the best content and curate the best stories. We keep a close eye on the kind of content/ genres that work on the platform, across various demographics. While we keep these genres constant, we also bring in newer and more experimental genres to expand our user base as well.

As far as foraying into other languages is concerned, our broader view is to entertain people across the globe in their native language, and hence this proposition is definitely on the horizons, but just as an idea at present.

Are there any specific markets and focus areas that you are looking at in the next five years?

Well, as previously mentioned, we want to entertain people across the globe in their native language, so whatever makes that goal more attainable is definitely on our roadmap. Also, we aim to increase our reach via more strategic partnerships and OTT bundling, as well.