Unstable Indian Home Video Market

Just year before in Janaury 2007, when Moserbaer entered with a bang by there low price strategy in Home Video Market of India, its rival pointed out that they dont know the business and rather they are going to spoil the market. However, Moserbaer denied all such allegations and cleared the facts that they entered the market with a different business model which nobody yet explored in India.

According to Moserbaer, they are looking for quantity sell rather than quality sell and also they said that no competitors had a pan India presence like they had and they will sell there products in all languages and in all terms of content, rather than only focussing hollywood and bollywood movies. Even Moserbaer entered the market after acquisation of some known Home Video players of that time like Indus, Bombino, Time, Venus, Tips, Captain and many other major regional players and soon after its entry in Home Video business it got the position of number one in terms of content.

Within 4 to 6 months of Moserbaer entry we saw a reduction in price of Home Video products by all other major rival companies like T-Series, Ultra and Shemaroo. But story doesnt ends up here, soon Reliance backed company "Big Home Video" entered the market to grab some share for itself from this space.

And within a few months from the entry of Big Home Video, rumours started coming up that Big Home Video is negotiating with two major players Shemaroo and Ultra for there complete buy out. The reason behind this was that both the companies are running in huge losses due to large scale piracy and they wanted to quit from the market.

But soon Shemaroo declined all such rumours and confirmed that they will stay in the market and no such negotiation is going on between Shemaroo and Big Home Video. However, sooner the news came in media that Moserbaer had struck a deal of 700 million(70 crore) with Ultra and they had acquired close to 1000 titles from Ultra. Along that we also got news that Big was also in the race but as Big Home Video wanted complete buy out of Ultra. But Ultra wanted to retain some titles under their company name with an aim to continue as active players in the market. Hence the deal went kaput. , so the deal couldnt get success and it went to Moserbaer's bag.

And this deal again made Moserbaer more stronger in terms of content in there library and it made Moserbaer a true giant in Home Video Space as it acquired many other contents from individual producers also like from BR Films, Shakti Samanta & many others in this space of time.

This year we saw that Big Home Video had struck deals with three major Hollywood Studios Universal, Paramount and Warner Brothers. And this deals made Big a major content owner of Hollywood movies and almost 60% Hollywood Movies will now be sold under Big Home Video label. Even Big Home Video acquired some of the biggest blockbusters in recent time with huge sum of money like Welcome, Jodhaa Akbar and recently Singh is King (for around 5 crores). With this they also cleared that they wanted to focus on Blockbusters and can spend huge some of money for them rather then spending money on acquisation of many small films. And even Big Home Video has been backed up by Reliance "Big" brand which has various business in entertainment space from movie production to movie distribution and now to movie screening.
So it helps them in acquiring rights for new movies. So for now Big Home Video is also been seen as a major player in Home Video space which is new in market but captured a good market share for itself in this short span of time after Moserbaer.

But acquisation story doesnt ends up here, few months back Sony BMG has licensed the right of 14 movies under its home video segment to Moser Baer for their distribution. Reason was given from Sony BMG side was that, Moser Baer is a strong player in the home video segment due to its pricing and reach, so Sony wanted to exploit its catalog to drive big numbers in small town. Even they cleared the fact that Sony BMG is not intending to shut its home video shop. Acquisition and distribution of newer titles will continue alongside, and gradually these titles will be redirected to Moser Baer for further exploitation.

After this another news has came up in recent times that UTV Home Video is also looking to sell its entire home video library and they are in talks with major home video players for that.So its an another interesting news that we have to look out(according to businessofcinema.com).

As on one side we seeing that older players like Bombino, Indus, Ultra etc. are quitting from the market due to large losses from which they are suffering for pirates but on other side new players are also coming in with different new business models to curb piracy and to establish themselves in the space created after quitting of older players.

And in this new entrant segment Moserbaer and Big Home Video are the major names, but now one more company has entered in this space. With the launch of "Phoonk", Times Music company backed Junglee Music has also launched its Junglee Home Video label. Even there are speculations that Sahara One is also planning to launch its Home Video Label in coming times in India, it is present in Overseas Market. After staying a silent player for almost a year from its deal with Moserbaer, now Ultra has also given slight hints that its going to invest a huge sum of money and will again return back in home video space by next year with its different strategies to fight with piracy, if everything goes well.

So now the market is really shaken up and nobody knows which company is going to survive in this space as every company knows that major threat for them are pirates & PIRACY which have acquired almost 90 per cent of the market in terms of sale. Now piracy has become digital and rather than purchasing DVDs, a person can download movies over internet free of cost.

Every Home Video company is trying its level best to reduce the pirates sale with there different business strategies, like Moserbaer has followed low price strategy and along that now it had also comes up with combination of movies in a single DVD under "Super DVD" brand name at a low prices, similarly Big Home Video is trying to reduce the cost of Hollywood Movies DVD. Along that Big and other major players like T-Series and Shemaroo has also followed the low price strategy but in there case, they brings down the prices of DVDs & VCDs, at an average time period of after 6 months of its launch on Home Video, whereas Moserbaer launches new movies directly at a low price.And some players like Eagle Home Video are playing a role of silent player in the market by acquiring few films per year, whereas players like Yash Raj & Eros are only focussing in launching of there production films on Home Videos and they rarely acquire separate rights for home video for any outside films.

Companies are trying there best to grab maximum share of Home Video market from pirates and everyone wanted to grab the number one slot in terms of sale and profit but till date nothing is seen to be clear that which one is gonna win this WAR FOR MAXIMUM SHARE IN INDIAN HOME VIDEO MARKET.