Hungama Digital Media Entertainment COO (consumer business and allied services) Siddhartha Roy

Year 2014

The big play-out for us was the fact that we completed one year for the app. We were happy to learn how the app was being consumed. We saw a big change when we introduced languages on the app.

Our brand campaign, which happened six weeks ago and features a voiceover by Hrithik Roshan, was the major highlight for us. The outreach of the campaign across Facebook was palpable as the average reach per campaign-related post was over 1 lakh and a total 40 lac people (approximately) influenced. With interactions going over 2.5 lakh across all social pages and over 1 million views on YouTube within 30 days of the launch of the campaign, it has got an overwhelming digital response.

With 12 million plus active users, there was huge flow of consumers consuming music through the app. Our video feature was very important as we have more and more video consumption. The big play-out in June was the offline cashing feature to our consumers. It was unlimited cashing given to our Pro consumers on audio and video. The next series of growth for Hungama is going to come through multiple language features.

The features that we introduced will play a major role in changing the way industry functions. We will soon try to tap into mass India, the interiors of the country, with the features that we are providing. We can connect with consumers and provide them the entertainment they require because of the data services that are available.

Partnership

Our ability to partner with device manufacturers has been a continuous process. Our app is pre-loaded in Lava, Intex, Videocon, Spice and others. There were over a dozen partners that have worked with us closely on device categories. We have seen some very interesting brand partnerships like Bacardi, McDowells and many others. We have advertisers like Apple, Airtel, Vodafone and other renowned brands, advertising on our platform. We partnered with Aircel recently, which allows Aircel subscribers to use Hungama Pro for free.

On the movie side, we made the Warner Bros. catalogue live and now we have access to 1400 films of Warner Bros. We have signed with another big international studio and we will announce that tie-up shortly.  It is for animation and movie content. We have had a good year.

We will soon announce an opportunity available for Hungama to further growth in North America.  There has been lot of activity on that front.

Challenges

In the music industry, monetisation is a challenge but we continue to grow. We have built our product to add higher value for participation and brands have partnered and rewarded us.

Growth

We have grown 100 per cent in advertising. In terms of advertising, we had very good response even though new tax policies were introduced this year. We ran campaigns for Alto and multiple campaigns for Ford EcoSport and we also got the iPhone campaign. Apart from that we have had many brands advertising on Hungama.

Throughout the year, we have sustained growth and we also had huge growth in terms of user base.

Competition

Unlike other streaming sites which only offer audio and videos services, we offer both- audio and video services. Our core value is that music is not just heard but watched and we continue pushing that path. But I believe in "the more, the merrier", as competition allows the market to grow. But we fight a separate battle as we are an audio video service.  

Achievements for 2014

An audio service ‘Kan Khajura’, which has content provided by Hungama for HUL, has bagged three golds at the Cannes Lions. We were invited to become a part of Qualcomm Design and Wireless Innovation Summit. Then, our app also completed one year with growing number of users and brand association.

Target for 2015

Our target is to be the preferred service for consumers in the music space. We will aim to provide the best experience to our end-consumers. We want to make them habituated to our experience and eventually pay to get more out of these services.