Movistar sees continued success in Chile


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Juan Fernandez Gonzalez

| 03 May 2016




One of the first territories to take on Movistar Play, Chile has become a model market for the over-the-top (OTT) platform.



movistarplayLaunched in 2013, the Telefónica platform now has over 110,000 subscribers in a country with a population of 17 million country in which less than three million subscribe to a pay-TV service. Indeed, according to Telefónica’s calculations, Movistar Play will outperform Netflix, the market’s subscription video-on-demand (VOD) leader, during 2016.

“We grew by nearly 400% during 2015,” said Paula Figueroa, marketing director, Movistar Chile. “Our subscribers play more than 3,000 VOD movies daily. At this growing pace, we will overtake Netflix.”

According to the company, the platform’s success is due to its catalogue, as, during 2015, Telefónica started to premiere films 48 hours after they were released in cinemas. Indeed, blockbuster premieres represented 20% of Movistar Play’s traffic during the past year.

In addition, the service in Chile offers 15 live channels, including premium sports networks such as ESPN and TyC Sports, BBC World and BBC Entertainment, and news feeds from CNN and TVN.

The scenario in Chile is the perfect situation for Telefónica as it faces strong OTT expansion across Latin America.

After two years of operating only in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Chile, Movistar Play has now arrived in Uruguay, Costa Rica, El Salvador and, most recently, Panama, among other countries. Before summer, it will be available in Peru, Ecuador and Nicaragua, taking the OTT service to a total of 12 Latin American territories.