iFlix has been aggressively advertising since they entered the entertainment scene in 2015. They were giving out trial coupons and consistently adding new shows to their roster. You probably have the app in your phone or tablet and it has probably saved you from hours of boredom while stuck in Manila’s crazy traffic. Today, iFlix is the world’s leading Subscription Video on Demand service for emerging markets, including the Philippines. The company just announced that they successfully raised 1B pesos in funding this calendar year.
They were able to do it with the help of Hearst; America’s largest diversified media, information and services companies. There were also new investors such as Singapore-based EDBI and clients of DSB private bank. Existing shareholders namely Evolution Media, Sky PLC, Catcha Group, Liberty Global, Jungle Ventures and our very own PLDT also showed their support by increasing their investments and it is proving to be a very promising one.
Over the past year, iFlix has seen extraordinary growth across all business segments, expanding from 4 markets to 19 across, Asia, the Middle East and Africa. The company has also built more distribution partnerships with 27 leading telcos to bundle iFlix with the customers’ mobile data subscriptions. The subscriber numbers have tripled and the engagement has doubled with the highest average active mobile viewing duration of almost 3 hours per session.
iFlix is committed to localization and the funds that they were able to raise will definitely help with that. They have produced 26,000 hours of subtitles in nine languages, with locally curated content in every market. They are taking this commitment to another level by coming up with exclusive original productions beginning with Oi Jaga Mulut, an audacious, uncensored, no holds barred stand-up comedy series that debuted in Malaysia last week. It immediately became the leading show on the service. Partnering with TVOne, iFlix also launched live premiere football streaming in Indonesia and it became one of the highest performing shows with over 34,000 unique views when it first aired. Last week, iFlix Philippines announced its collaboration with the country’s Queen of All Media, Kris Aquino, to commission an original drama series.
“From the beginning, our vision for iFlix has been to build a word-class service for the local customer, transforming the way everyday consumers enjoy entertainment in emerging markets. These new funds will allow us to further execute on our local content strategy and expand our technology and development teams so we can continue to rapidly evolve the iFlix service to meet the unique challenges of emerging markets,” says the co-founder and Group CEO Mark Britt.
