Online cinema Okko, one of the market leaders by paid monetization model, announces the results for 2017. In 2017, Okko demonstrated double increase of the income from sale and lease of film and TV series content on all platforms: website, mobile and Smart TV applications, as well as game consoles. With the income of 1.38 billion rubles, the online cinema showed operating profit.

AUDIENCE

The total monthly average number of views of content has increased to 1.76 million hours (for comparison, in 2016 this figure was equal to 0,63 million hours) and the number of users up to 1.5 million. 75,9% of viewers use Okko on Smart TV and PlayStation, 21,5% — on mobile devices, 2.6% – on PC. The number of average monthly views in 2017 increased by almost 1.5 times and amounted to 4.44 million. The audience of Okko – it is mainly residents of large cities of Russia at the age of 25-45 years. Since 2017, all products of Okko are available in Kazakhstan.

CONTENT IN 4K AND RUSSIAN FILMS IN THE TOP SALES

Okko continues to develop partnerships with all leading Russian and Hollywood studios including 20th Century Fox, Warner Brothers, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal Studios, Walt Disney Pictures. In 2017, the online cinema not only expanded the library of video content available to users to 33,000 titles, but also in the framework of strengthening partnerships with a number of rights holders, including Sony Pictures Entertainment and Paramount Pictures, presented to its users Russia’s largest collection of Hollywood blockbusters in ultra-high quality 4K (Ultra HD). Today the library of movies in 4K (Ultra HD) in Okko consists more than of 100 names.
A significant contribution to the growth of sales was made by the content of domestic production. As noted in previous reports of the company, Russian films and series had increased demand from the audience of Okko in the past year. Views of domestic content increased
in 2017 by 63%, and in the top 5 films of the year for the first time there were 4 Russian movies: “Posledniy Bogatyr”, “Gogol.Nachalo”,
“Vremya Pervih” and “Prityazhenie”.

CINEMA EXPERIENCE AT HOME (4K AND DOLBY ATMOS)

Primary task and integral part of the positioning of the service is to bring cinema experience to user`s home: Okko offers viewers a full immersion in viewing – movies are shown without advertising, in high quality and with surround sound.
In order to broadcast Hollywood films in VOD, Okko has created its own solution to transcode 4K movies, which allows you to deliver data streams by existing, limited channels to user devices.
In addition, in 2017, Okko was the first in Russian market to provide its viewers with the opportunity to enjoy films with high-quality Dolby Atmos sound. Dolby Atmos is technologically difficult to play as part of VOD services, and therefore only such world leaders as Netflix, Amazon and Hulu Plus have the opportunity to broadcast movies with such sound worldwide.

THE LAUNCH OF UPDATED SITE

In April 2017 Okko re-launched the website of the project, making it a full-fledged channel of access to the service through online. Up to this point, it was possible to watch movies, cartoons and TV shows on Smart TV, via the application online cinema on mobile devices and on game consoles PlayStation 3 and 4.

“The main driver of the growth of paid model is Smart TV, but percentage of paid viewing of licensed films in online cinemas through websites is constantly growing. Taking into account the developing trend of cross- platform content consumption, we have strengthened our website as one of the sales channels,” says Ivan Grodetsky, CEO of Okko.

RESULTS: DOUBLE INCREASE OF THE INCOME AND OPERATING PROFIT

Thanks to the work done on each of business directions, online cinema Okko showed an operating profit in 2017. Service income for 2017 amounted to almost 1.4 billion rubles (the figure for 2016 – 775 million rubles). Number of unique paying users per month compared to
the same period last year increased by 65%. Okko is still the leader among paid online cinemas with a market share of 18%, maintaining and strengthening its position in the EST and increasing the subscription segment (SVOD). In 2017, almost half of the audience of Okko used a number of different subscriptions, making us a full service of regular watching.

“The past year has become a turning point for online cinema market, for the first time paid model bypassed the advertising by income. From the very beginning Okko focused on paid model, and now we are once again convinced of the correctness of this strategy. In 2017, analysts of Okko noted the long-awaited trend – formation of a new habit of regular viewing. VOD is increasingly substitutes for terrestrial TV and becomes an important element of daily activities. Today, Okko is the industry’s technology leader in image and audio quality. Next step and our priority is to improve the recommendation system, which will help viewers to quickly search for and select relevant content, enhance the quality of interaction with the service, provide fine-tuning of preferences. In the coming months, we will continue to change in accordance with our plan of large-scale renovation and partial re-design, which began to be implemented at the end of 2017”, commented Ivan Grodetsky, CEO of Okko.