QYOU Reaches Global Audience of 300 Million

QYOU Media (TSXV:QYOU), one of the world’s leading curators of premium “best of the web” content for multiscreen distribution, announced on Tuesday (April 24) that its programming formats have reached an audience of 300 million globally.

QYOU Media recently expanded in India, and has credited new distribution partnerships across Asia, Africa, Europe and North America for its growth.

The company tied up new partnerships with iflix, Go Media and Jio, and also launched its first original programming format, Heads Up Display, which was picked up by Canada’s Super Channel and most recently WPT Distribution.

Curt Marvis, CEO and co-founder of QYOU Media, told the Investing News Network in a telephone interview that while YouTube is a global phenomenon, there has to be a local angle.

“Kids in Indonesia watch things that are different from kids in India and kids in Poland,” Marvis said. “We have worked on building a workflow and a process and an engine that can drive forward content that is localized.”

Marvis said that big video-streaming service providers like Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) use the same techniques to fuel their growth outside of North America.

“The huge part of the way they’re spending time and focus on creating localized versions of their services in territories around the world, we are doing exactly the same thing albeit on a smaller scale,” he said.

Marvis admitted that compared to larger providers QYOU Media has lots of challenges, but said that the company has targeted specific territories to understand what works and what doesn’t.

“Amazon and Netflix can take over the whole world faster than we can,” he said. “We are in this for a longer run. We believe this is a massive growth engine for the next couple of decades, and so we are not necessarily trying to win the game in the next three months.”

Marvis said he will be attending the APOS conference, a premier event for the media, telecom and the entertainment industries. QYOU Media’s partners, including Tata Sky and iFlix, will be attending, and Marvis said that a number of new companies that QYOU Media is talking to are also going.

“There are some new announcements that we expect to have in the next couple of months out of India,” Marvis said. Last week, QYOU Media expanded in India with new content and distribution partnerships. The new additions follow a number of content partnerships that the company signed in 2017.

“While pay television is dropping in major countries around the world, including the US and Canada, it’s continuing to grow in India,” Marvis said. “The amount of support and money being put on both by the government and by companies in the mobile space, there was and there continues to be a massive amount of money and purpose driving video on mobile devices.”

According to a study conducted by We Are Social, internet penetration in South Asia stands at 33 percent as compared to North America’s 88 percent. Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends study shows that the price of 1GB of data in India is at $0.17 on Jio, one of QYOU’s partners, while other operators offer it at $1.90, which is still far less than rest of the world.

Marvis said that the company will be continuing to pursue the territory as it has content that is relevant to millennial and Gen Z-aged audiences, and has seen a tremendous opportunity.

According to Indian Census 2011 data, more than 41 percent of people in the country are between the ages of 18 and 40, with 30 percent of the population between 0 and 15 years.

“Bringing advertisers to content that is attractive [and] elusive,” Marvis said of the revenue opportunities for his company. “It doesn’t matter if it is India or Canada, everyone is challenged with reaching that audience from an advertising point of view.”

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Securities Disclosure: I, Bala Yogesh, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.

Editorial Disclosure: The Investing News Network does not guarantee the accuracy or thoroughness of the information reported in the interviews it conducts. The opinions expressed in these interviews do not reflect the opinions of the Investing News Network and do not constitute investment advice. All readers are encouraged to perform their own due diligence.