OTT player, Viu shuts India operations to focus on other markets

Video streaming service, Viu has decided to phase out of the Indian OTT space citing resource crunch as the primary reason. With more than 30+ OTT players competing for eyeballs in India and spending crores of rupees on content development, the Singapore based OTT player could not put in the heavy investments required to fight back.

The death knell for the OTT platform in India was sounded with a series of high profile exits. First to go was their India CMO, Shantanu Gangane who joined quit in November 2018. Bimal Unnikrishnan, VP – Content quit in January 2019. Viu’s co-founder Nickhil Jakatdar and Sameer Gogate vice president of business development quit in June 2019. Lastly, their CFO Apurva Desai also quit and Monday was his last day.

Viu will continue to operate out of other countries. In a statement to the employees of the company, Arun Prakash, chief strategy officer at Viu said that “we would rather invest in other Asian countries where we are top 5, rather than in India, where we are at 13-14 place.

This report was first carried by Economic Times (ET).

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