PCCW Media, a multimedia and entertainment subsidiary of PCCW group, has entered into an agreement to acquire a controlling majority interest in Vuclip, a leading premium mobile VOD service for emerging markets. Via the acquisition, PCCW aims to expand its digital video business beyond Hong Kong, building on top of its local Over-the-Top (OTT) services including MOOV music and now TV news, sports and entertainment apps. The company targets to be a top digital entertainment service provider in Asia and the acquisition can expedite its strategy in rolling out its OTT video service in the region and beyond.
California-based Vuclip has wide footprint in Asia including India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and the United Arab Emirates, with rollout plans for other Southeast Asian markets in 2015. Vuclip with its patented Dynamic Adaptive Transcoding technology, brings more than one million titles including Bollywood and Hollywood movies, TV shows, entertainment and sports news, music videos, etc. in 25 different languages including English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bahasa Indonesia, Arabic, Malay and Thai. Additionally, the company brings on board its mobile payment solutions via Vuclip’s expanding partnership with more than 13 leading regional carriers.
Our vision is to expand beyond Hong Kong by offering industry leading OTT services. Together, Vuclip and PCCW Media will develop a best of breed OTT platform that provides immediate access to PCCW Media’s premium Asian content set (including Korean, Japanese, and Chinese language content) across a much expanded audience base in the Asian continent and other regions. The integrated billing solution that Vuclip has developed with its telecom partners in various markets will enable us to fast track our OTT video and music penetration globally.
Dr. Nickhil Jakatdar, CEO, Vuclip
As a leader in mobile video for emerging markets, we have always strived to meet the needs of our users with a combination of our innovative technology and a strong partner ecosystem comprised of content studios, mobile operators and advertisers. With the synergies between PCCW Media and Vuclip, we can now serve the emerging markets better and accelerate our global expansion.
