Telecom, OTT Deals Push Sun NXT User Base Beyond 2 Crores

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Sun NXT, the over-the-top (OTT) streaming platform run by Sun TV now has over 2 crore users, with the majority acquired through the tie ups with telecom operators and other OTT players. The development was shared by SL Narayanan, group chief financial officer at Sun TV Network in the first quarter earnings call on Friday. Narayanan also said that the platform does host users “who have come organically” but “that number is very small.” However, the group CFO at Sun TV said that the organic users on the SUN NXT platform are “growing.”

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Sun NXT Has “Impressive Collection of Content” Says Sun TV Group CFO

Narayanan said that Sun TV is “investing in movies” and that Sun NXT has a “hike” in its user base each time the company premieres a new movie on its OTT platform.

“If anything Sun NXT [has] got an impressive collection of content,” Narayanan said in the first quarter earnings call on Friday. “So, you get all our channels streaming live, and then you also have access to my entire library and you can choose a nonlinear option on these serials as well. So, to say that you know, there’s no content on Sun NXT is absolutely facetious.”

Crucially, Narayanan said that telecom operators receive “restricted access” to Sun NXT portfolio and that the deals with the operators does not mandate Sun TV to produce fresh content for Sun NXT.

“We limit their (telecom operators) access to my library because you know, for the kind of price that we get, we don’t open up the entire library,” Narayanan said. “We only give restricted access to our library because if they want to get the entire access, I’ll be cannibalizing my own customers.”

In India, Sun TV has priced the Sun NXT monthly plan at Rs 99 while the quarterly and annual plans are priced at Rs 129 and Rs 489 respectively. It has to be noted that the telecom operators including Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea offer its users access to Sun NXT portfolio through JioCinema and Vi Movies and TV respectively. However, the JioCinema along with Vi Movies and TV platforms are largely available to Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea users for no additional cost.