Qubit.TV: Another OTT Model
Ximena Cassab @xcassab | 06/01/2016
What: Qubit.tv presents an alternative business model to OTT.
Why It Matters: Because competition between cable channels and OTT services have led businesses to come up with new ways to sell their content in order to differentiate themselves from others.
It's no secret that the relationship between cable channels and VOD (Video On-Demand) and OTT (Over-the-Top) services has become more and more competitive. Cable channels are launching their own channels and saving content to present exclusively on their own platforms, as HBO does, or as Televisa did when it took its content off of Netflix.
On the other hand, OTT platforms developed their own high-quality content to compete. The best example of this is Netflix and its original series that have broken records like "Orange is the New Black," and "House of Cards." Here, the challenge is bigger, because companies need to know about both technology and content to come out ahead.
To differentiate themselves and compete with a giant VOD platform like Netflix, Lilián Beriro, content acquisition manager of the Argentine OTT platform Qubit.TV, explains that since 2011, the company has sought to "have a much deeper idea of what the theater experience is, take advantage of local cultures of each country to understand how they are and bring specific content to each of them. And it is important to provide access to payment methods other than credit cards, so that your services are accessible to a much wider user base."
With the objective of offering technological content solutions to businesses as much as the final user, Qubit Corporate has two business units, one that is B2B and another that is B2C. Thanks to this, the company has a presence in six countries already: Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Colombia, Ecuador and just recently, Guatemala.
"What we do is develop a VOD platform with added content for third parties, which can be big companies from industries like telecommunications," explains Beriro. Among their clients are companies like Antel, Arnet, Personal Argentina and Personal Paraguay. In this sense, large companies that have a wide client base can offer them a VOD content platform as added value.
The platform and the content catalogs are the same, and what we do is offer a blank page for them to customize the platform.
Like that, this VOD platform, with 3500 different titles, becomes one more product that the companies can offer their clients, as many telephone companies include access to a music or video game platform to their clients. When the platform belongs to the intermediary company, that company needs to worry about promoting the site and creating a marketing and branding strategy for it. At the same time, Qubit.tv has its own platform that it sells directly to the final consumer.
Thanks to this business model, Qubit Corporate isn't looking for individual clients, but seeks large corporations that already have a captive audience of mobile content consumers. This allows Qubit to charge for the service without needing to finance itself through investors, as Netflix has done (and for that reason, experts say that the company still hasn't made money).
We have not tried to compete with Netflix, because what we do is create strategic alliances in the business that allow us to create a financially sound business to be able to pay for technology and, most importantly, content.
Qubit Corporate plans to have a presence in 10 Latin American countries by the end of this year, and assures us that they are very interested in Mexico, where it may enter in 2017. "We have to be careful, because the value of content, due to the current volume and high potential of the Mexican market, and because we have already witnessed strong performances by companies like Claro Video and Netflix. But of course, it's a great aspiration of ours to enter that market," concludes Beriro.
Ximena Cassab @xcassab
Ximena is a Swiss-Mexican journalist based in Mexico City where she specialized in business, and travel topics. Graduated from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), she has worked as an editor at the magazines Expansión , Aire and Accent, from Expansion Group. Currently she is working with different media in Spanish and English independently. She is a passionate traveler who does not miss the opportunity to see a new place in the world.