Foreign companies have long been salivating over the local streaming media market’s potential. Malaysia-based video streaming startup iflix has officially launched in Vietnam with the aim of tapping into the country’s sizable population, the company said on Tuesday at a press conference.
Vietnam is currently ranked by Internet World Stats at 18th globally in terms of the number of internet users, making it a lucrative proposition in the eyes of foreign streaming platforms.
The streaming video provider sees Vietnam as a huge market with enormous potential mainly because the country has a growing population and fee-based online streaming services like iflix are still virtually new in this market, citing David L.Goldstein, iflix manager in Asia, as saying.
Vietnamese consumers have long enjoyed access to free online videos, however, with the arrival of the U.S video streaming giant Netflix a year ago, and now Malaysia’s iflix, this is changing.
iflix makes its money from charging subscribers a monthly fee of VND59,000 ($2.59) after a 30-day free trial. This is about three times less than subscription fees currently offered by Netflix, and could start a price war between the two.
Customers in Vietnam can watch iflix on a variety of devices, including desktop computers, tablets, televisions and smart phones.
The streaming platform also allows its subscribers to select subtitles in English or in Vietnamese, said Country Manager Hoang Tung at the press conference.
iflix is now available in eight Asian markets, and its catalog includes both Hollywood hits and local content in Malaysian, Chinese and other regional languages. It has secured more than 1 million subscribers since its launch in 2015.