“ALT Balaji was never formed to compete with Netflix or Amazon,” says founder Ekta Kapoor

• ALT Balaji, a home-grown platform in India, says it doesn’t want to compete with streaming giants Netflix and Amazon.
  
• ALT Balaji was started three years back and has been among the big players in providing regional language, mostly in Hindi, content in various parts of the country.
  
• It is among the cheapest apps which can be subscribed for ₹100 for three months.

ALT Balaji, a home grown streaming platform, says it doesn’t want to compete with the giant over-the-top (OTT) platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. It would rather attract those millions of Indians who remain addicted to soap operas.

“The app has done really well in itself. It is a cheap app and it does not want to contradict or fight Netflix but to get audiences who watch TV but land up watching what their family and friends want.I don’t want to make Netflix kind of shows, I want to make shows for tier 2 and tier 3 cities” Ekta Kapoor told Business Insider India in its latest episode of the Big Reset.


Kapoor is the joint managing director and creative head of Balaji telefilms, which runs three different businesses under one company name — film production in one, television series under the second, and the OTT app ALT Balaji. While other businesses were hit by the lockdown, according to Kapoor, ALT Balaji saw significant growth in the last three months.

ALT Balaji started three years back and it has been among the big players providing regional language content, mostly in Hindi, to Indian audiences. It is among the cheapest apps which can be subscribed for ₹100 for three months. It plans on dominating the Hindi speaking market in India. It currently has 1.7 million active subscribers who continue to binge content daily.

OTT Platform	Price
ALT Balaji	₹100 for three months
Amazon Prime Videos	₹999 a year
Netflix	₹499 a month

It has witnessed 60% growth in its subscription during the lockdown, Nachiket Pantvaidya, CEO told Business Insider earlier. With 60+ originals, Alt Bajaj claims to have the largest content library of Indian originals. Last year, AltBalaji and Zee5 partnered to c0-produce a few shows.

And now, Kapoor wishes her homegrown OTT platform to reach out to an audience at international level. “No one knows that a lot of Indian content is watched in Africa”, Kapoor said, hoping that the Prime Minister’s call ‘vocal for local’ will be followed up with some push for Indian entertainment abroad.

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