FPT Telecom launched its FPT Play VOD platform in 2015 and is now competing with several other local and regional VOD services. Photo: Le Toan At the end of last month, Chinese internet conglomerate Tencent announced that it purchased some assets of Malaysia-headquartered video-on-demand (VOD) service iflix to boost its own WeTV streaming service. Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s purchase of competitor iflix Sdn., Bhd. could see it overtake Chinese rival iQiyi and lead to further consolidation in Southeast Asia, analysts told S&P Global Market Intelligence. Iflix is a struggling streaming platform with about 25 million users focused in South and Southeast Asia. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a plunge in advertising, wreaking havoc on the media industry and iflix. While streaming on the platform doubled during the outbreak, the Kuala Lumpur-based company cut about 50 staff earlier this year. It also had to shelve an initial public offering in May, and some of its directors and co-founders have stepped away, as reported by Bloomberg. Meanwhile, GoPlay, the video streaming service under Indonesia’s Gojek, has recently wrapped an undisclosed investment led by Singapore’s Golden Gate Ventures and Chinese investment firm ZWC Partner, to deepen Indonesian focus. Last September, Gojek launched GoPlay to compete with a similar offering from Grab, with a promise to focus on local production and on-demand delivery to mobile devices. However, Grab’s involvement in streaming already looks like a push that went too far too fast as in May, its partner Hooq, a five-year-old streaming service that had aimed to be the Netflix for Southeast Asia, shut down, according to CNBC. Le Trong Duc, director of the digital department under FPT Telecom who is in charge of FPT Play, told VIR that the over-the-top (OTT) market in Southeast Asia leaves little room for new players. To secure a stronger footprint, each player needs to channel all efforts and resources to …
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