Eros Now has licensed its entire 11,000-strong library to Chinese streaming service iQiyi. Eros Now is inaccessible in China. Currently, streaming services require licenses to operate directly from China without licensing their content to an established player. The Eros Now deal follows in the footsteps of what Netflix did last year. When Netflix launched in 130 new countries in 2016, the announcement came with a caveat. "The Netflix service has gone live in every country in the world but China, where we also hope to be in the future," CEO Reed Hastings announced. That hope didn't pan out, and Netflix ended up licensing the bulk of its original content to iQiyi, which is China's largest video streaming service. While the financial details of the deal were not disclosed, Eros International CEO Kishore Lulla said that the company hopes to earn $10 million in the first year of the agreement, according to an interview he gave to Sina. This deal comes as Eros Now expands internationally. This week, the company also announced a hardware deal with Xiaomi to make the service available in Indonesian households. iQiyi is partly ad-supported and partly paywalled, like Hotstar, and claims to have over 500 million active monthly users. Eros’ International expansion and tie-ups The streaming service is available to Amazon Prime members on Amazon Channels across the US and UK. It also partnered with Smart TV company Foxxum in the UK to bundle Eros’s Bollywood library on the Foxxum TV App Store globally. In India, it has partnered with Airtel to offer its catalogue within the Airtel TV app…
