Paytm Plans To Launch OTT Services, Begins Hiring Process

Online payment and ecommerce platform Paytm is reportedly looking to foray into the video content space and plans to launch over-the-top (OTT) services. The company has also begun the hiring process for the service, according to media reports.

Earlier in June 2018, the company had introduced new features such as in-app content across categories such as Live TV, News, Cricket, Entertainment Videos, and Games on the go, for its Paytm inbox. Users could avail these services for free.

For this, Paytm had already partnered with OTT content provider YuppTV along with Hungama, UC News among others for providing content through its Paytm Inbox service.

According to reports, the company believes that it would need more content to compete with its rivals such as Amazon which is providing video and audio streaming services through Amazon Music and Prime Video.

Earlier in September 2018, reports stated that Walmart-owned Flipkart is also looking to foray into the OTT content space to compete with Amazon’s Prime video service. The company reportedly held talks to acquire a stake in Star India’s video-streaming service Hotstar.

Paytm’s Initiative To Strengthen Its Position In India

Among the troubles and debates around the Paytm extortion case, the company, however, had been stepping up its initiatives to boost its presence in the country.

According to Paytm, it was the largest contributor to the volume of UPI payments in India as of November 2018 and had recorded a 600% growth in its transactions within previous six months.

Recently, the Reserve Bank of India also removed the ban on Paytm Payments Bank and allowed it to restart opening new accounts for its consumers.

Among other features, the company also introduced spam-proof SMS Inbox as a part of the Paytm Inbox in October 2018, which uses proprietary Machine Learning (ML) algorithms to classify messages into personal, transactional and promotional categories.

Last year, it also launched its fourth consumer brand in India — a mutual funds platform called Paytm Money which began operation with 850K users.

Now it is looking to tap into the growing OTT space in the country. According to a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), India will be the 10th largest market for online video in terms of revenue by 2022.

Not only the homegrown players but international players are also looking to strengthen their position in the country as recently US-based Netflix has leased a 1.5 Lakh sq ft space in Mumbai to set up its India headquarters.

With this growing effort of major players to develop the OTT space, Paytm will have to work hard and step up its game to compete with others. Some of the notable players in this space are Hotstar, Reliance Jio, BigFlix, and Voot among others.

[The development was reported by ET]