Eros International, a leading global company in the Indian film entertainment industry, announced that Eros Now has partnered with Chinese online video-streaming service iQiyi for a content licensing deal.
iQiyi is one of the largest online video sites in the world, with nearly 6 billion hours spent on its service each month and over 500 million active monthly users.
However, Eros did not disclose financial terms of the deal but said its streaming service Eros Now will license its catalogue of Indian movies such as Dabangg, Devdas, which Chinese viewers will be able to watch by October.
Commenting on the development, Rishika Lulla Singh, CEO, Eros Digital, said, “The association with iQiyi represents a vital step forward for us as we continue to explore opportunities to expand our content offering globally. China has emerged as an important market and a major box office earner for Indian films in recent years, and it is a very significant milestone for us to further expand Eros’ dominant content distribution network through Eros Now’s alliance with iQiyi”.
Eros Now, which has rights to over 5,000 movies in various Indian languages, has 10.1 million paid subscribers in India.
Chinese viewers will be able to watch about 100 movies within the next month and increase to about 1,000 in the next year.
With this partnership, Eros Now becomes the first South Asian OTT player to make inroads into the Chinese digital space.
China has become an important market for the Indian film industry, the world’s largest by output, and recent movies such as “Dangal” attracted a lot of attention in the country.
iQiyi, which has around 500 million monthly active users and whose programming includes music reality show “The Rap of China” and crime drama “Burning Ice”.
