Indian streaming and video-on-demand platform MX Player is planning to launch 40 new titles in 2022-23.

The OTT platform, which recently announced the merger of its short video platform MX Takatak with Sharechat’s Moj, also has plans on launching a separate gaming app besides the gaming tab on MX Player’s app.

MX Player Chief Operating Officer, Nikhil Gandhi, spoke to BusinessLine on the sidelines of Goafest, a three-day ad world extravaganza. Gandhi spoke about the OTT player’s future plans, content strategies and growth targets. 

As global OTT giants such as Netflix fight the subscriber acquisition battle, Gandhi remains unfazed about future growth prospects. Even as the world comes out of thepandemic, and adverse impact of inflation on consumers, Gandhi does not see MX Player tapering down.

“Since we are an AVOD (Advertising Based Video on Demand) service, we are not affected by external affairs. Even if an IPL tournament is happening, and theatres are buzzing with a great film, it does not affect us.”

Gandhi stated the platform has around 200 million users in India. MX Player also launched a subscription service six months ago. “On this, we have half a million subscribers, AVOD is going to be our mainstream base,” Gandhi explained. 

According to Gandhi, “Content should always have accessibility, ability to grow mass- and we are growing by that premise. This gives us two things — AVOD provides us more data that we collect on a daily basis, and it gives us a lot more on a business growth strategy. (This data) Adds so much value to us, it designs the next growth levers for us,” he said. 

Gandhi told BusinessLine, that the platform’s subscriber base grew by 20 per cent last year.

“This year, we have given our teams a north star metric to grow by 30 per cent. Our overall AVOD business grew by 40 per cent last year, we are going to grow it by 200 per cent this fiscal.”

In lieu of this, Gandhi describes the platform’s content strategy to have the following levers.

“Our content strategy is driven by our growth levers. One is to feed our loyal base of 200 million users, second is- how do I attract the next set of users by creating new formats.” 

The platform had headlined its 2022-23 content slate with the reality show “Lockup” led by Kangana Ranaut. Gandhi has described this show to be a big hit amongst urban audiences.

“We have identified new (growth) levers. The reality show segment gives us premium audiences, like what Lockup has done. We are also toying with long-format TV shows, with a run time of 56 episodes to attract homemakers who watch TV shows. Ruhaniyat did really well for us, so we are launching 5 more shows,” said Gandhi. 

Gandhi is also focused on his regional audience, whom he characterises to have huge viewership appetites.

With 27 per cent of MX Player’s audience, Gandhi says the platform intends to drive further engagement amongst their regional base.

Gandhi also noted that the streaming company is well on its path to profitability.

“We are on the path, we think we will be able to beat the timeline of profitability that we had planned initially.”

After the merger of its short video platform with Sharechat, the company is looking for further growth opportunities, including potentially launching a new gaming app and toying with the idea of launching live streaming services. 

Published on May 12, 2022