Grab Partners with Hooq, Introducing In-App Video Content

A ride-hailing service, Grab, partners with video on-demand platform, Hooq, to introduce in-app video channel. This is Grab's initiative to be the "everyday super app". As it was said by Grab's Group Head of Strategy, Hidayat Liu, the latest feature is to be tested first in Indonesia.

Previously, other than on-demand platform services, Grab has released GrabDaily, a special page contains informative content and entertainment. It's to invite customers to often access the app, not only for transportation or delivery.

He said, video-based content will be more entertaining. It goes along with a moment of interest growth on video subscription. Based on "Video-on-demand Survey 2017" report released by DailySocial, Hooq (48.30%) is the most popular service in Indonesia, followed by Netflix (24.93%), and iflix (24.35%).

Peter Bithos in his speech said the partnership with Grab is a way to make the service available in various platforms. The scenario is, new user will watch movie teaser or video from Grab, then they'll watch the full version through Hooq.

In marketing the service, Hooq has partnered with telco in Indonesia. They provide exclusive access bundled with internet data. It's a good penetration, considering Netflix, the competitor is currently blocked by ISP under Telkom group.

Gojek, as Grab's biggest competitor, actually intends to implement similar strategy - to provide in-app entertainment. To make it possible, Gojek, through its venture unit - Go-Venture - has make an investment to an online news portal kumparan and Millennials video content developer Narasi TV.

– Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian