Eros reports strong Q3
Details
Editor
| 22 February 2019

Leading Indian TV and film content provider Eros International has posted what it calls a robust third quarter of its current financial year with its Eros Now on-demand over-the-top platform claiming particular success.

For the quarter ended 31 December 2018, Eros Now racked up 15.9 million paid subscribers, representing growth of 218% year-over-year, with registered users growing to more than 142 million, a 78% increase compared with the prior year. Eros noted that it achieved its previously announced year-end target of 16 million paying subscribers in the nine-month period.

Eros also reported its strongest quarterly revenue performance in more than two years, generating $86.6 million in gross revenue and $76.7 million in reported revenue. Quarterly revenue grew 21.0% and adjusted EBITDA margin grew to 40.9%.

Over the nine months of the company’s fiscal year, Eros premiered a total of 46 films on Eros Now. These included the premiere of 19 films across seven Indian languages such as Hindi, Marathi, Malayalam, Assamesse, Gujarati, Bengali and Kannada.

Also during the third quarter, Eros launched the Eros Now Quickie platform for short form original content. the company said that engagement data has been ‘very encouraging' with a 75% retention rate from episode to episode. Also during the quarter, Eros entered into strategic partnerships with the Indian telecommunications operator BSNL, Celcom and Etisalat among others. The BSNL partnership was the first for an Indian telecommunications operator.

“Our foresight into creating a diversified slate, both linguistically and by budget, helped deliver strong television sales as well as theatrical and digital result,” commented Eros executive chairman and CEO Kishore Lulla. “Our Eros Now OTT platform has continued to grow rapidly and reached 15.9 million paid monthly subscribers as of 31 December 2018, a 22.3% increase over last quarter. We have achieved our previously announced year-end target of 16 million paying subscribers in just nine months. This...demonstrates that we are well on our way to achieving 50 million paying subscribers in the next three years.”