Even as rumors swirl thick that Eros is considering selling its vast catalogue of films and music to Apple, Netflix or Amazon, and as it battles a class action lawsuit filed in 2015 alleging that it inflated its subscriber count in press releases, the company claimed that it tripled its paid subscriber count to 2.9 million, from one million in early 2016. It had a target of 2 million paying subscribers by end of FY17. The company has set a target 6 to 8 million paid subscribers in Fiscal Year 2018 therefore driving the profitability and positive cash flows. The total number of users, as opposed to paying subscribers, is 60 million, the company said. That means that 4.84% of Eros Now's users are paying subscribers. Shashi adds: Eros had defined what a paying user was during the December quarter: Paying subscribers means any subscriber who has made a valid payment to subscribe to a service that includes the Eros Now service either as part of a bundle or on a standalone basis, either directly or indirectly through a telecom operator or OEM in any given month be it through a daily, weekly or monthly billing pack, as long as the validity of the pack is for at least one month. For growth, Eros is relying on telecom operators for distribution. It is live on Airtel, Jio, Vodafone and Idea, and the company saw “six digit contributions” from Idea Cellular and Vodafone, “within weeks of launch”, with Idea going live only in January 2017.…
