M

ovie buffs in Indonesia will be spoiled with more options to legally stream their favorite content as Singapore-based paid video streaming service HOOQ makes it entrance into the Indonesian market.

HOOQ, which started out as a joint venture between Singaporean telcom SingTel and several Hollywood movie studios, will be available for mobile, desktop and tablet download in Indonesia through Google Play and the App Store starting Thursday.

HOOQ’s chief content and distribution officer Krishnan Rajagopalan said the service had collected up to 35,000 hours of content for the Indonesian market, mainly Hollywood movies, as well as both new and old Indonesian movies.

Regional content, such as Thai horror, Bollywood and Japanese anime, are also included in the mix.

Regarding the local content, Rajagopalan emphasized that not many Indonesian movies, particularly classic titles, were readily available on the market despite the obvious demand for it.

By emphasizing the availability of local content, he believed that HOOQ would see significant success, thereby boasting the “most complete digital catalog of Indonesian content”.

“One thing that we needed to address is the unserviced need for Indonesian films. Every country has their own heritage and we tried very hard to obtain the licenses to many local films that span decades. We realize that this kind of demand must be met as it is a very wide space to fill,” he said.

Indonesia is the fourth Asian market that the streaming service will enter, after establishing its presence in the Philippines, Thailand and India in 2015.

According to HOOQ’s market analysis findings, Indonesian moviegoers tend to favor adventure, horror and drama above other genres, while Western comedies have proven to be unpopular.

“Some genres work well in some places [...] Horror works well in Indonesia, but not a lot of Hollywood comedies translate well here. To help find our market, we analyzed data from box offices and even BitTorrent activity to help customize our catalog for the Indonesian market,” Rajagopalan added.

He said HOOQ would help alleviate the demand for pirated films, joking that the sheer scale of HOOQ’s collection would deter people from illegal downloads. HOOQ’s pricing scheme will start from
Rp 49,500 (US$3.75).

HOOQ’s country head for Indonesia, Guntur S. Siboro, said the company had established a representative office in the country.

In terms of complying with the government’s regulation for foreign internet companies to have legal entities in order to operate locally, he added that the firm had partnered with several telcos in terms of determining prices and distribution, thus fulfilling the local partnership clause.

HOOQ has also partnered with several big-name Indonesian broadcasters and movie studios, such as MNC, MultiVision Plus (MVP) and Trans Studios in order to fill its catalog and distribute its content.

“In terms of the regulation, we are still waiting on further clearance regarding what category we would fall into if we were to start a cooperative. Are we an online media outlet or something else? Once we do get the information from the government, then we can start the process,” Guntur said.

To accommodate foreign internet firms operating in Indonesia, establishing a cooperative is a viable option to become a legal entity. This method was adopted by foreign transportation hailing apps Uber and Grab in order to establish proper legal entities in Indonesia.

HOOQ is the latest foreign challenger to step into Indonesia’s video streaming service ring, after US-based Netflix launched its Indonesian service in January.