In an exclusive interview with TimesTech, Abhijeet Rajpurohit, COO and Co-founder of Cloud TV, discusses the brand’s journey as India’s first certified Smart TV OS provider, its focus on affordability, and how innovations like AI, regional content, and CTV advertising are shaping the future of Smart TV in India.
Read the full interview here:
TimesTech: Cloud TV is India’s first certified Smart TV OS provider. How did you establish the brand, and what sets it apart in the industry?
Abhijeet: As the first and only certified Smart TV OS in India, we envisioned the democratization of content streaming by offering Indian consumers a truly tailored Smart TV experience. Unlike existing operating systems, which often catered to foreign markets and were not optimized for local preferences, Cloud TV was built specifically for India.
Most companies in the OTT operating system space were focused primarily on building experiences for mobile and web platforms. However, we realized the need to slowly shift towards a TV screen. Recognizing this gap, we set out to develop our own software that would enable consumers to watch OTT content directly on their TVs. To distribute this software, we launched it through our own television brand, “CloudWalker,” debuting Cloud TV as an operating system in our Smart TVs, which were first made available exclusively on Flipkart in 2017. The OS was received very well in the market, and we started partnering with other TV brands to incorporate CloudTV into their hardware. Since 2019, CloudTV has now partnered with over 200 TV brands to power their smart TVs.
TimesTech: With over 200 Smart TV brands and 12 million consumers, what challenges did you face building a platform for the Indian market, especially in tier 2 and 3 cities?
Abhijeet: With India’s diverse consumer base that has a strong demand for affordable TVs, one of the challenges was to ensure that the software could run smoothly on lower cost hardware without compromising on the quality. Collaborating with manufacturers to optimize budget devices was crucial in making the smart TVs more accessible to the customers. Tackling this challenge led to us creating a device that is not only affordable but also has features that are typically available in premium TVs like voice assistance, content discovery, premium UI/UX design.
We are constantly working towards improving our product and expanding our reach into emerging markets, which includes tier 1 cities as well. Balancing affordability with premium experience and ensuring seamless access to technology across varied regions was key to overcoming the challenges of reaching these growing markets.
Cloud TV has grown significantly over time in the Indian Smart TV market, powering around 6 million Smart TVs through partnerships with over 23 manufacturers, supporting more than 200+ brands, 200+ partners and serving approximately 12 million consumers.
TimesTech: Cloud TV collaborates with 200+ content and 100+ app partners like Prime Video. How do these partnerships enhance the consumer experience across devices?
Abhijeet: In a content cluttered market, there is enough content for the consumers to browse. However, strategic partnerships with these OTT applications make content discovery easy for our audiences. This helps to create a seamless experience for our current and new audiences.
We work in different ways to ensure the consumer is aware of the relevant content choices we have to offer. This includes homepage banners that highlight the popular content releases of the week, the top trending row allows the audience to browse through the trending titles and we constantly work on features to allow efficient content discovery.
These partnerships are aimed at our content repository and provide the OTT apps with 6+ million potential consumers. Our OS also offers free streaming news, music channels, and on-demand sports and entertainment content, becoming a ‘one-stop shop for our consumers.
TimesTech: Connected TV (CTV) is reshaping the advertising landscape. How is Cloud TV contributing to this, and what’s your outlook on the future of programmatic CTV in India?
Abhijeet: Smart TVs provide a much larger platform for brands to advertise on and this is a huge plus for the market. In fact, there are studies to show that the audience has better brand recognition on smart TVs as compared to other traditional advertising platforms. CTV advertising is the future and with the growing market of smart TV in India, brands will and must capitalize on this evolution.
With the help of AI, CTV advertising has also become more targeted and interactive with the audience. This means there are call-to-actions that the user can follow like QR codes or buttons to buy and subscribe to products or services that grab the customer’s attention. This presents several creative opportunities for the advertisers who can work on innovative campaigns that are more engaging with the audience. It is also to be understood that CTV advertising is much more feasible than traditional platforms, which opens this as an opportunity to many more brands, regional and local included. CloudTV works with advertisers in helping them identify the right placements for their brands and works in synergy to achieve certain goals. The offerings by CloudTV make it easy to work with us as there is flexibility and affordability in CTV advertising.
TimesTech: With Smart TV growth in smaller cities, how is Cloud TV making digital content more accessible and affordable for these consumers?
Abhijeet: CloudTV ensures that our software seamlessly integrates with a budget-friendly hardware that the TV manufacturers are working with in smaller cities. Our focus has been to deliver a premium smart TV experience on an affordable device that comes with more than 200 OTT applications. This includes regional apps which may be of more relevance to some audiences. Thanks to our content discovery feature, and also regional voice assistant feature, all our consumers have easy access to the content they wish to see with just a couple of commands.
The Make-in-India approach helps us stay flexible in our integration process and we can work with multiple partners to cater to their needs of the market.
TimesTech: As a Made-in-India brand, what key innovations will drive Cloud TV’s next phase of growth in the Indian Smart TV market?
Abhijeet: As a Made-in-India brand, Cloud TV is driving its next phase of growth through key innovations that enhance consumer experience and expand market reach. We are integrating advanced AI for personalized content recommendations and expanding partnerships with global OTT platforms and FAST channels.
A dedicated innovation team is also exploring connected TV (CTV) advertising, which holds significant potential in India’s growing smart TV market. Additionally, we’re focused on integrating multiple OTT packs and live TV channels to create a seamless experience and working on making content management easier for consumers. These innovations will help Cloud TV grow while offering businesses new opportunities. We recently also announced that we are expanding to the Set-Top-Box market as well, which will be an interesting curve to take on, and we are excited about our new partnerships. We’re constantly evolving with our strategies and products to stay at the top of the game in the industry and are grateful to the response we receive from our partners.
