Following Netflix, Zee5 Will Offer Affordable Packs, Mobile-Only

Without a doubt, OOT service is becoming an abundant market for several firms. To survive in a competitive and price-sensitive market like India, providers usually have a very first plan of low-price subscription in order to attract the customers as much as possible. Recently, Mumbai-based media firm Zee Entertainment is said to be planning on Zee5’s latest mobile-only packs at lower rates. Zee5 was launched in India on 14 February 2018 with content in 12 languages.

According to Manish Aggarwal, Zee5 business head, these packs are supposed to be charged at 30 percent cheaper price in comparison with the standard packs and still under testing at present. Zee5 currently offers a monthly plan for Rs 99 and the annual plan priced at Rs 999. There’re some regional packs priced at Rs 49 per month and Rs 499 per year, which are launched in Tamil, Kanada, and Tegulu.

These kinds of packs are looking forward to having greater reach than the DTH/cable subscribers, thanks to roughly 500 million smartphone subscribers across the country. However, some industry analysts said that mobile-only packs will be different from the old ones in the sense that they may be stripped down version of the original.

Zee5 has been bundled with all the top telecom operators in India, such as Reliance Jio, Vodafone or Airtel, so that having mobile-only packs may bring subscribers some significant advantages. In these cases, customers don’t have to pay a separate subscription charge for accessing Zee5 content.

Prior to this Zee5 plan, Netflix – another player in India, is also having a testing phase on its mobile-only plans, which start at Rs 65 and Rs 250 for the weekly and monthly plan, respectively. The company has also claimed that the low-priced offerings will “be important to adding members” in such potential market.