Mubi to take streaming service to Southeast Asia
Details
Rebecca Hawkes
| 24 June 2019

Online film platform Mubi is set to launch in Malaysia with both western and regional movie titles, followed by an expansion into other Southeast Asian markets.

Mubi opened a regional office in Kuala Lumpur last year and is now working with telcos Maxis and Digi to offer the subscription-based service in Malaysia. It will be priced at RM15 ($3.63) per month.

The curated streaming service, which offers a new film title each day that is retained for 30 days, will modify its business model for the culturally and ethically diverse region, Variety reported. In addition to its western film festival titles, it will offer two other on-demand channels, with Mubi Dekho! providing South Asian movies, primarily in Hindi and Bengali, while films from Malaysia and Indonesia (the Nusantara region) will stream on Mubi Sinema.

Mubi plans to add further channels in Malaysia, one for Chinese-language and Korean films, and another for South Indian films in Tamil and Telugu, said Variety.

“The Southeast Asia market is very fragmented with a lot of noise from a lot of players, but almost everyone is trying to do the same thing,” Mubi founder Efe Cakarel told Variety. “They are skewing heavily towards TV series, trying to find blockbuster content, and trying to reach as many households as possible in one go.”

Netflix and Amazon Prime Video are still offering content focussed on the Western market, rather than local content and cinema from the region, and others are lacking in capital to amass a “compelling offering” he added.

Mubi is reportedly in talks with telcos in Indonesia, ahead of a planned launch in the populous island nation early next year.