HOOQ video-on-demand service launches in Singapore

Source: HOOQ. Bithos.

HOOQ, first premium video-on-demand service for Asia to launch across the region. has launched in Singapore. HOOQ launched its inaugural service in the Philippines before expanding to Thailand, India, Indonesia and now Singapore, a population footprint of over 1.6 billion people.

A venture established in Singapore in 2015 between Singtel, Sony Pictures Television and Warner Brothers, HOOQ aims to change the way Asians consume entertainment. It is the first time in Asia that three media power houses have joined forces to empower customers with unlimited online streaming access to top Hollywood, Asian and kids' movies and TV series anytime, anywhere and on any device. These include computers, smartphones, tablets, set-top boxes, smart TVs via Google Chromecast and all Apple devices.

The service provides over 20,000 of movies and TV series to choose from. The latest US TV series including Supergirl, Lucifer, The Player, Ash vs Evil Dead and Mad Dogs are available exclusively on HOOQ. Favourites such as Scandal, Mad Men, Friends and Community in addition to box office hits such as The Amazing SpiderMan, Crazy Stupid Love, and Pulp Fiction.

To complement these top Hollywood hits, HOOQ offers customers an extensive range of Indonesian, Filipino and Indian movies and TV favourites by partnering with over 100 studios from around the region. In addition, HOOQ boasts kids' titles.

“We are very excited to bring to Singaporeans the ultimate ad-free freemium video-on-demand service with the largest catalogue of Hollywood, Asian and kids' content of any service available today for the price of a movie ticket. With over 20,000 titles to choose from, there’s something for everyone. We are so proud to launch here in Singapore, HOOQ’s home, and we look forward to getting Singaporeans HOOQ’d month after month,” said the CEO of HOOQ, Peter Bithos.

HOOQ’s business model combines the best of subscription services, which are ad-free, and freemium models, which do not charge for their services but serve up advertising to customers. The introduction of such a hybrid model now allows customers to sample a premium service at no cost. Pilot episodes of all TV series will now be free for all registered users even after their free trial period has ended. Customers can now catch pilot episodes from Once Upon a Time, Devious Maids, The Mentalist, and Castle etc. This extended sampling gives the customers the power to decide if they would like to continue to watch the rest of series before they pay for the subscription.

The HOOQ app is focused on a faster and higher-quality streaming experience for the customer. The app has a real-time content feed and personalised recommendation engine that makes discovering new favourites easy.

HOOQ also announced today a partnership with Singtel that enables Singtel’s prepaid, postpaid and broadband customers to access HOOQ as part of bundled service packages. HOOQ will be available to Singtel prepaid customers first and the other bundles will be available to postpaid and broadband customer progressively over the next few months.

"Singtel is always keen to expand our content offerings to enhance our customers’ entertainment experience. They will be pleased with HOOQ’s vast selection of Hollywood hits, as well as ethnic movies and TV dramas. As an over-the-top (OTT) video service, HOOQ is a good complement to our pay TV product, as it allows us to offer an even wider breadth of content over multiple screens – mobile devices, computers and televisions,” said Goh Seow Eng, MD of Home, Consumer Singapore, Singtel.

Interested?

Download the HOOQ app from Apple Store or Google Play and sign up for a seven-day free trial. In addition to the current support of iOS, Android, Web, Chromecast and Android Set-top Box, the HOOQ will also be available on Airplay and mobile web. 

Singtel prepaid customers who purchase an eligible prepaid data plan will enjoy access to over 15,000 Indian, Indonesian and Filipino movies and TV series. Prepaid data plans start from as low S$7 for 1GB over seven days.

Singtel postpaid, broadband and TV customers can look forward to exclusive HOOQ deals on Singtel’s video portal, Cast, in the first quarter of 2017. More content is expected on HOOQ in the coming months.

Vuclip Global Video Insights 2015 shows Malaysian consumers want fuss-free entertainment

Vuclip, the mobile video-on-demand (VOD) service for emerging markets, has released the findings of its Global Video Insights (GVI) 2015 Survey that shows the video consumption habits and device preferences of Malaysian consumers:

Source: Vuclip. Prakash.

Malaysian consumers consider as many as seven features as must-haves in an OTT content player, with a smooth user interface (61%), buffer-free experience (58%), high definition video quality (56%), and the latest/fresh videos (54%) as the top four. Respondents identify an additional three factors as important: autonomy in selecting streaming quality (47%), video download features (46%) and ability to download multiple videos at the same time (45%).

“Our survey shows that consumers consistently want a smooth and fuss-free entertainment experience. One factor that stood out is the need for the latest and freshest videos. With hundreds of hours of video content uploaded online every minute, to a multitude of video sites, consumers want to be entertained by the newest and best videos. OTT providers need to be able to provide the most relevant and best content for their viewers,” said Arun Prakash, Vuclip’s Chief Operating Officer.

The survey also covered Malaysian consumers’ general video consumption habits. They typically prefer to use their laptops or PCs when viewing video content (45%), followed by smartphones (23%), televisions (23%) and tablets (9%), with half of all respondents stating that they view videos on laptops/PCs and smartphones daily.

Mobile devices are the preferred device when viewing "short form" content, or content with a run time of less than 10 minutes (84%, as compared with 70% for laptops/PCs and 17% for television). Television and laptops/PCs lead for long form content (93% and 71% respectively), such as films and videos with a run time of more than 10 minutes.

Eight in 10 (82%) of respondents indicate they download videos, with free videos from websites preferred (62%), followed by torrents (44%); only 15% purchased videos online. These videos are likely comedies, the top genre at about 60%, followed by action and sports for males, and romance and drama for females.

The results also show that Malaysian consumers use Wi-Fi to access the Internet on mobile devices (43%), as compared to 3G (32%) and 4G (22%) connections. Viewing of videos on smartphones is primarily done at home (80%), or where there is free Wi-Fi (50%). At the same time, the survey highlights slow download speeds or buffering (56%), high data consumption (56%) and battery drainage (47%) as key concerns around smartphone video consumption in Malaysia.

“The modern video consumer in Malaysia wants early access to their favourite quality videos. We see that Malaysians tend to get around network constraints by viewing content at free Wi-Fi locations or downloading videos. These are likely reasons why longer form content is viewed at home rather than on the go,” Prakash noted.

*Methodology: Vuclip’s Global Video Insights 2015

The data for preparing the Vuclip Global Video Insights 2015 report was collected by conducting a comprehensive online survey of 4,600 individuals in 10 countries. There were 500 respondents from Malaysia. The participants for this study consisted of 18- to 35-year-old smartphone Internet users who viewed videos on their smartphones at least once a month. Additionally, geographic representation from different parts of each country was ensured. Users were provided multiple-choice questions and had the option to opt out. No incentives were provided for responding. The 10 participating countries are Malaysia, India, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, the Philippines, Indonesia, the US, the UK, Singapore and Australia.

ACCA to hold Accounting for the Future virtual conference from 15 to 18 September

Source: ACCA website.

Corporate culture, sustainability and global business service models are the burning issues up for discussion at the sixth annual Accounting for the Future global virtual conference, to be held by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), the global body for professional accountants.

Four days of video and audio webcast content, on a range of subject matter involving the future of the accountancy profession, will be streamed live and on-demand for the conference from 15 to 18 September 2014:

15 September 

Risk and culture: how much does corporate culture influence effective risk management and governance? 

16 September 

Investors and reporting: a new reporting framework. 

17 September 

Tomorrow's world: how are changing economies going to impact on finance professionals? 

18 September

The smart finance function: how can finance teams work smarter to become the drivers of success with a business? 

Key highlights to look out for during the conference include a panel on culture and channelling corporate behaviour on the first day. Based on a report to be released in September 2014 in collaboration with UK’s Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), this session looks at recent scandals in the banking sector and at hospitals where the blame has fallen on "poor corporate culture". As a result of this, the Financial Stability Board expects more awareness of risk culture and that boards of financial institutions will be asked to judge their own organisational culture.

On the last day of the conference, a live audio webcast will cover talent transformation in Asia. A cross-discipline panel will look at available, established and emerging and converging technologies, and the ways in which they could potentially impact on the profession over the next five to 10 years. They will consider new technologies, their potential impact, the role that accountants can play and new  opportunities that will be created. 

Faye Chua, ACCA's Head of futures research, said: "The finance profession is ever-changing, especially with the rapid advancement in technology we have seen in recent years. We need to keep up-to-date with the changes and see how beneficial they are to our work and to the profession as a whole. Of course everyone wants to be ahead of their competitors too, so this would be another incentive to keep up with change, as well as to build a stronger and sustainable economy."

Register for the conference here. The agenda is here. ACCA members can receive CPD points that count towards their training and education.