When
Content Is truly the King
Soon, what
your smartphone offers in terms of content will matter much more than its price
or features
FIRST THERE were no wars.
Just the fact that there was a device that allowed a phone call on the move was
enough for people to buy a mobile phone in millions. Then came the ‘feature
war’ where sending an SMS, having ten songs before your phone memory filled up
and watching a blurry video on a postage stamp-sized screen drove people into a
frenzy. Then came the ‘split war’ where if you wanted a phone, you bought a
Nokia (it could actually take a picture) and if you wanted a business phone,
you bought a BlackBerry (it could actually download your emails). Smartphones
sparked off an ‘app war,’ hardware innovation lead to a ‘ spec war’ and
competition led to a ‘price war.’ Ladies and gentlemen, all those wars are
over. Brace up for the biggest war ever. The ‘content war’!
THE EXPLOSION
There are many ways to
define this war. Let’s go for the simplest one. In the near future, you will
neither buy a phone based on specs (phones are getting commoditised at an
alarming pace), nor price (most companies will get out of the price war very
soon as it’s killing them all). You’ll buy a phone based on the content it
comes with. There’s a real logic behind it. Imagine you’re at a phone store,
you’ve zeroed in on the last three phones, all of them have almost the same
features, cost almost the same, look pretty much the same! What’s going to
swing your vote? Obviously, the content. It’s estimated that all of us are
consuming more content on the move, mainly on a largescreen phone. Video
consumption is king here, people are spending more time on it than on social
media, and it’s only going to explode further.
Video content consumption
on a device comes in many different flavours – YouTube-like videos,
Netflix-like subscription, aggregated content from media houses such as Voot (Viacom
18) and Hotstar (Star) and of course video torrents (obviously illegal and a
firm favourite). Right now the magic is in all things free. And that’s where
smartphone brands are about to indulge in battle.
PREPPING THE WAR
It started off with
Xiaomi investing in Hungama (apparently a big investment, and a big
announcement of how this investment will manifest in Xiaomi phones is around
the corner). Up next was the announcement by LeEco that they would have 2,000
movie titles, 100 live TV channels and 2.5 million songs free on their phones
from here on. This is a big game changer and one that may redefine how we
actually make a buying decision.
LeEco is well-placed to
do this as content is the DNA of the company and it’s one of the biggest
players in content in China. In India, Eros Now, Hungama and YuppTV are its
content partners. If LeEco has done it and Xiaomi’s about to do it, can others
be far behind? Free movies, exclusive libraries, and TV shows that never made
it to Indian shores are all packed up for free, inside the little smartphone
box that you just bought.
MAGAR YEH INDIA HAI
As of now each of these
services stream the content onto your phone. That means you need a kickass data
connection and one that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. No such service exists
in India. Almost all of them are banking on the mythical 4G war that may bring
data prices down to the lowest in the world. That may or may not happen as the
Airtels and Vodafones have some form of 4G, but at prices that make video
streaming a luxury only for those loaded with money and stupidity. Reliance 4G
is supposedly the catalyst that will start the price war, but they seem to
change their launch date every month. Most people will use all this free
streaming on WiFi networks – thus defeating the very idea of content
consumption on the move.
TILL THEN...
There could be
interesting strategies at play to tide us over and corner this market till 4G
is dirt cheap. A brand could bundle a 64GB sampler of movies, TV shows and
content on a MicroSD card in the box. This content could rotate with two movies
and two new TV shows getting updated every week on WiFi (on its own at night)
and thus you would always have new content on your phone to play anywhere
without a data connection. This could be a huge trigger for small towns and for
those who have never used a data connection on their smartphones. Offline free
video content with single-burst downloads, based on your requirements, could be
the next big thing. Plus, companies who bundle a free Netflix connection and
introduce offline Netflix.
LeEco has fired the first
salvo into the field. Eventually all the brands will scramble and fire too. The
good part: while this war will have many casualties in the brand battleground,
the customer wins every single time. Start noting down names of all the movies
and TV shows you’ve been dying to watch. They’ll be playing on a smartphone
screen near you very soon. For free!
·
Rajiv Makhni Rajiv Makhni is managing editor,
Technology, NDTV
·
HTBR15MAY16
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