Inview has the know how to monetize Set-Top Boxes (STBs) in low ARPU countries

Inview has the know how to monetize Set-Top Boxes (STBs) in low ARPU countries APR2016

18th

Mark Rooney, our VP Business Development attended the NexTV Series Mumbai on 6th April and while he was there gave an interview on how Inview can monetize low ARPU markets. This can also be found on NexTV News India: http://nextvindia.com/mark-rooney/

Can you give us a broad overview of Inview activities in India and also globally?

First of all, the NexTV Series Mumbai is a tremendous conference, a lot of interesting things have been said and packed in one day. Inview has been obviously involved around the world but India now represents an ideal place for our activities, in terms of what we do and provide. We provide a crucial part of the middleware that really drives the infrastructure for set-top-boxes. We do that in Africa, Latin America, Europe, Asia. Obviously India in its own right is huge. It needs to be done properly in India as there are key issues in India. For example, because India is so vast, each economic and geographical group is huge in its own right. We have been talking at the NexTV Series Mumbai conference on how to monetize the STBs in countries where the ARPU is particularly low and obviously focusing on India - and that is a major and important part of our strategy going forward.

Talking about low ARPU, what are according to you the challenges of working with a country like India where the ARPU is low?

India is a huge market and we have to be very careful to work out how operators can make money. This is where we come in and we have done this around the world. It is the way you are driving the STBs to be able to provide a number of additional things and one of the things we have been talking about at the conference is targeted advertising. Our DNA is very much EPG and user interface; we are able to do clever things with the electronic program guides. If we look in term of advertising, the advertising market in America is US$ 100 billion a year whereas in India, it is just US$ 2-3 billion, but this is going to change dramatically. If we can start driving that, it will mean that the operators for the first time would be able to start making money out of the STBs. We believe that India and Inview are completely well suited to each other and we are looking to drive all the interest in us we have seen at the NexTV Series Mumbai conference.

Can you elaborate more on how operators to monetize the STBs?

We are basically saying that there are a lot of thing operators can do with the STBs. They are not just acting as a vehicle with advertising for broadcasting. For example, we were involved with Freeview in the UK in 2000 and we have done a lot to show how banner advertising, and cross promotion can be done with the channel listings. To be able to do that in India which is a huge country, we will encourage operators to use the advertising skills that can implement on the EPG and I am sure that it will work out very well. As we provide solution for STBs, we can also work on STBs with a very low specification - in relation to CPU and memory whilst still being able to monetize. Evidence on how successful and compelling this is is the fact that we have been selected and mandated to be the software provider for Nigerian STBs.

Does Inview have any related projects in any other SAARC regions besides India?

We are. In fact, what we tend to do is to really drive and add value. We are more than just providing some solutions; it is all about embracing those countries and listen to what is being requested rather than just simply providing them with solutions. For these countries, digital TV is very important. In this way, we'll work with these countries along with their respective government and operators to grow with their businesses. We have been very busy in talking to operators in several SAARC countries over the last few years and look forward to giving you more details in the future.

LINK:	http://inview.tv/news/view/65/inview-has-the-know-how-to-monetize-set-...
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