iQiyi Eyes Indian, Southeast Asian Films

Bollywood and Southeast Asian movies are on iQiyi’s shopping list for its Chinese online video service, its SVP, Yang Xianghua, said at Asia TV Forum today.

Viewership on the platform is mobile-heavy, Yang noted, with 70 percent of its 600 million monthly users watching content on their phones.

In the competitive online video sector in China, a focus on innovation has given iQiyi an edge, Yang said. “We are the first ones to launch a mobile app for long-form video. We are the first to launch a subscription business in China.”

Moving into a subscription tier was a challenging task in China, Yang noted, given that consumers were long used to getting all of their online content for free. Nevertheless, the platform has notched up some 80 million paid subs, according to Yang.

At present, iQiyi’s platform is focused on growing its Chinese user base, but it has licensed some of its content to the likes of Astro in Malaysia and StarHub in Singapore.

On what’s working for the platform, Yang said local content remains dominant, including movies, dramas and variety shows. U.S. movies are also popular, he said. In terms of kids’ content, anime is in demand. Yang also referenced the Chinese box-office success of the Bollywood movie Dabangg and the Thai movie Bad Genius. As such, iQiyi is looking at diversifying its film offering.

“We are trying to import more and more Southeast Asian films to China.”

The platform has a deal with Indian movie powerhouse Eros. “We have built a relationship with some Indian cinema production companies,” Yang said, either acquiring the digital rights to films or all rights, including theatrical.