STARZPLAY, a subscription video on demand (SVOD) service in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, has demonstrated its competencies in creating end-to-end over-the-top (OTT) infrastructure by winning a new multi-year project from Lionsgate Play India.
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This follows the highly successful partnership between STARZPLAY and Lionsgate Play, forged a year ago where STARZPLAY leveraged its in-house technology to provide its managed service, encompassing the STARZPLAY Connect Platform, to drive the launch of Lionsgate Play in India. The platform primarily offered back-end tech solutions to support the Lionsgate Play launch. Since then, Lionsgate Play has gained exponential growth in subscriber volume.
The new contract builds on the stability and robustness of the infrastructure and support provided by STARZPLAY, underlining its position as a tech provider of choice to launch and operate highly scalable SVOD platforms.
As part of the new project, STARZPLAY will deliver the entire infrastructure, both back-end and front-end, including an advanced intuitive content management systems (CMS), billing solutions, customer service and marketing technology (martech) provisioning, video player, search and recommendation engine and the complete tech stack.
STARZPLAY’s continued partnership with Lionsgate India cements the company’s reputation in efficiently building front-end and back-end solutions as well as telco integration and direct-to-customer app development. The partnership could potentially expand to other markets in line with Lionsgate Play’s expansion strategy.
Danny Bates, Chief Commercial Officer, STARZPLAY, said: “We are delighted to take our relationship with Lionsgate a notch further and this is a testament of our cutting edge and robust in-house tech infrastructure. We are proud to support Lionsgate India once again as we continue to offer our tech solutions. OTT streaming industry is growing rapidly across the globe and the current climate has further accelerated this momentum. As MENA region’s leading SVOD player, we focus on supporting our partners and new enterprises with our competitive services and advanced technology that help push the boundaries of online video entertainment.”
Amit Dhanuka, Executive Vice President, Lionsgate Play, said: “After collaborating closely to launch and grow our OTT business in India for the last one year, it is exciting to now partner with STARZPLAY as we expand our service throughout Asia. STARZPLAY’s experience of running their OTT platform in MENA means that they understand the challenges of launching and growing businesses in competitive markets and this makes them a great partner for us.”
STARZPLAY’s current solution for the Indian market has integrated three of the biggest telcos in India – Vodafone, Jio and Airtel – along with various local modes of payment (MoPs). The platform currently offers B2B2C solutions and as part of the renewed partnership STARZPLAY will be providing B2B2C as well as B2C solutions to Lionsgate India for their current as well as future projects.
Faraz Arshad, VP of Technology & Infrastructure, STARZPLAY, added: “In a competitive market such as India, continuing to support Lionsgate India is extremely significant as it shows our price competitiveness, flexibility and ability to provide superior tech products. Our homegrown technology has been supporting Lionsgate Play in India which has been extremely stable and has resulted in a significant increase in subscriber volumes.”
The list of hardware apps that STARZPLAY will support includes Android (Mobile + Tablet – Chromecast & Miracast to be supported), IOS (iPhone+ iPad – Airplay, Chromecast & Miracast to be supported), Responsive Website, Android TV, MI TV Android, MI TV Custom Android, Sony Android, Panasonic Android One Plus Android TV, Apple TV App, Fire Stick Android, LG WebOS, HTML 5 TV App and Samsung Tizen.
STARZPLAY’s experience of running an OTT service in MENA has enabled it to license its platform technology that has been developed inhouse over the last 5 years.
With more than 10,000 hours of premium content including blockbuster movies, exclusive TV shows, kids content and Arabic series, STARZPLAY is available in 20 countries across the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan for fans to enjoy.