Mumbai: Established in 2017, Cloud TV is a homegrown, bootstrapped start-up dedicated to delivering a premium experience on affordable smart TVs for India’s growing market. With a mission to democratise content, Cloud TV’s adaptable platform works seamlessly across various hardware, currently powering over 12 million users on six million devices. The platform supports 200 smart TV brands and partners with over 200 content providers and 100 apps, including Prime Video and Jio Cinema, while collaborating with more than 22 manufacturing companies.
At the heart of Cloud TV’s journey is Abhijeet, whose passion for technology and curiosity for new gadgets and software have driven his innovative approach. With a keen focus on India’s tier two and tier three cities, he aims to continually redefine the smart TV experience, making advanced entertainment accessible to a diverse audience across the country.
Indiantelevision.com’s Rohin Ramesh, caught up with Cloud TV COO & co-founder Abhijeet Rajpurohit, who discussed how Cloud TV as a made in India brand offers competitive solutions and its growth story so far.
Edited excerpts
On made in India brand influencing Cloud TV's operations and your approach to product development:
Cloud TV is India’s first and only certified smart TV operating system and was created to democratise content streaming and unlock the absolute potential of smart TVs in India. Developed in 2017, we embarked on a journey to develop a TV operating system that would cater to the unique needs of its Indian users. Our product quickly garnered popularity as the only smart TV brand that simplified OTT content discovery while offering affordability. Hence, Cloud TV began by identifying the gap within the Indian smart TV market and bringing forth a locally designed and produced solution.
Our made in India approach addressed a significant void in the TV OS industry which needed a more local support and nuanced understanding of what the Indian audience truly required. To achieve this, we worked networked and partnered with local Indian TV manufacturers that needed a certified operating system for their TV devices. Eventually, leading us to partner with over 22+TV manufacturing companies.
Today, our impact resonates across the Indian smart TV landscape, powering over 12+ million users, 6+ million devices, 170+ Smart TV brands, and over 200+ content partners and 100+ App partners like Prime Video, Jio Cinema, etc. while working with over 22+ manufacturing companies.
On setting you apart from other brands, particularly in terms of technology and user experience:
Understanding the demands of the Indian TV market and solving the pain-points of TV OEMs (TV manufacturers) and Brands with our offerings, especially for the affordable-tier segment has been our greatest strength.
To elaborate further, since we are an India led brand, the market and its requirements are more familiar to us than the global OS that is distributed in the market. We work closely with our OEMs and work flexibly to cater to their needs. When it comes to launching a new TV brand in the market with Cloud TV OS, our onboarding and turn-around process is much quicker than global OS companies. Some of these differences make it much easier to work with Cloud TV and build a strong community in the industry.
With India being a multilingual community, our voice assistance is constantly evolving to include more regional languages to its database to give the user a more personal experience with their smart TV. We were also one of the firsts to focus our UI to be more content led which garnered popularity amongst consumers and made content discovery easier.
On identifying and catering to the diverse needs of users in tier two and tier three cities
India's diverse market demands for affordable smart TVs. Recognising this need, we partnered with manufacturers to optimise our software to perform efficiently on a budget-friendly hardware. This makes the device more accessible to the market. And while we prioritise affordability, our software still delivers features which are typically found in the premium TV segment.
A smart TV powered by Cloud TV offers a wide range of content, applications along with voice assistance designed to cater to users of all types, whether they're seasoned Smart TV owners in metro cities or first-time buyers in tier one and tier two cities. We’re expanding the reach of smart TVs by making them accessible to those consumers who want to purchase a budget TV with all the necessary smart TV features.
One of the biggest challenges we face is that while the consumer is buying an affordable TV, they still expect a premium TV experience from the budget-friendly device. While this is a challenge, it is also an opportunity for us to work with our partners in the ecosystem and ensure that the TV functions appropriately through its shelf life and provides the best experience to the end user.
On specific software features you have developed to cater to the preferences of Indian consumers:
Cloud TV has been ahead of the curve by introducing features like the content recommendation-based Home Page with various content categories and Live TV channels for seamless content discovery. While content discovery is important, many users want to search for content in their preferred language, which is why Cloud TV voice assistant supports regional languages like Marathi, Hindi, Punjabi, Gujarati and more.
Additionally, our mobile remote app allows users to effortlessly browse and play content from their phone to the TV. Our aim with these features and our viewing experience has always been to operate from a place of regional inclusivity. What sets us apart is delivering premium features, typically found in high-end international brands, in affordable TVs, ensuring more people can enjoy a high-quality, convenient entertainment experience.
On discussing the importance of your partnerships with major content providers like Prime Video and Jio Cinema:
In a content cluttered market, there is enough content for the consumers to browse. However, strategic partnerships with these OTT applications make content discovery easy for our diverse audiences. This helps to create a seamless experience for our current and new audiences.
We work in different ways to ensure the consumer is aware of the relevant content choices we have to offer. This includes homepage banners that highlight the popular content releases of the week, and a top trending row that allows the audience to browse through the trending titles. All these features are constantly worked upon and refined to allow efficient content discovery for Cloud TV’s user base.
These partnerships are aimed at our content repository and provide the OTT apps with 6+ million potential consumers. Our OS also offers free streaming news, music channels, and on-demand sports and entertainment content, becoming a one-stop shop for our consumers.
On Cloud TV working to make digital content more accessible to the average Indian consumer
We work with our content partners in a more democratic manner to help them reach out to their target audiences. This benefits both the content partners and the consumers who want content discovery to be much easier and efficient. Irrespective of language, genre or application, Cloud TV becomes a central hub for entertainment for families.
On CTVs transforming the advertising landscape in India and opportunities you think it presents for advertisers
Smart TVs provide a much larger platform for brands to advertise on and this is a huge plus for the market. In fact, there are studies that emphasise the fact that the audience has better brand recognition on smart TVs as compared to any other traditional advertising platforms.
With the help of AI, CTV advertising has also become more targeted and interactive with the audience. This means there are call-to-actions that the user can follow like QR codes or buttons to buy and subscribe to products or services that grab the customer’s attention. This presents several creative opportunities for the advertisers who can work on innovative campaigns that are more engaging with the audience. It is also to be understood that CTV advertising is much more feasible than traditional platforms, which opens this as an opportunity to many more brands, regional and local included. CTV advertising is the future and with the growing market of smart TVs in India, brands will and must capitalise on this evolution.
On innovations you are currently exploring or excited about that could shape the future of smart TVs:
Looking ahead, Cloud TV is set to introduce several innovations aimed at enhancing the user experience and broadening our market reach. We are focusing on integrating advanced AI and algorithms to provide more personalised content recommendations and improve user engagement.
Additionally, we plan to expand our partnership network to include more global OTT platforms and Fast channels, offering a wider variety of content options to our users. We are also looking to expand to MENA (Middle-East and North-Africa) regions to provide affordable solutions to TV brands.
With CTV advertising being the future, we are constantly working on exciting projects with advertisers for their campaigns. In this changing landscape, we are at the forefront of driving AdTech solutions in this industry and constantly evolving with our approach.
