After Tamil, ZEE5 doubles down on Telugu content to up its subscriber base

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26 Aug, 2025 12:21

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Zee Entertainment's streaming platform ZEE5 is doubling down on content in the Telugu language and plans to launch 11 titles in the span of 10-12 months.

Punit Misra, President - Content & International Markets, ZEE Entertainment Enterprises told Moneycontrol that within southern markets Tamil and Telugu are top priorities.

In April this year, the over-the-top (OTT) platform announced the launch of 20 films and series in the Tamil language out of which 12 are originals and seven to eight movie premieres. This is higher than the three Tamil originals last year.

Similarly, the OTT is ramping up its Telugu slate with 11 originals and 8010 movie premiers, up from two originals and 4-5 movie premiers last year.

"Telugu users have highest per capita spend on movies. Plus, 20-25% of our subscribers currently are Telugu speaking audience," said Manish Kalra, Chief Business Officer, ZEE5.

He added that they are increasing investments by 2.5-3x in Telugu content.

"We are going all out for the south market. And with investments in the Telugu market we expect acceleration in our growth," said Misra.

The streaming platform in Q4 FY22 reported a 44 percent growth in monthly active users (MAUs) revenue grew by 31 percent year-on-year (yoy). Its revenue grew to Rs 161.4 crore in Q4 FY22 from Rs 145.9 crore in the third quarter.

Misra said that the OTT's subscribers grew 4-5 times in the last year.

ZEE5 is estimated to have a 6% share in India's subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) space while its share in the advertising video-on-demand was 2% in FY22, said an Elara Securities report.

The platform is estimated to get 60% of its revenue from subscriptions and the remaining 40% from ads on ZEE5.

Now in its fifth year, ZEE5 is focusing on regional markets to get more subscribers on board.

In February this year, Kalra had said that the platform will increase investments in content by 50-60% in 2022 versus last year and that there will be a good focus between originals and movies. he had also added that investment will be 50-50 on originals and movies.

Both the platforms (Sony Liv and Zee5) may have to accomplish immense leg work on the OTT side (user experience, large-scale content, and distribution) in order to emerge a winner and scale-up in the highly fragmented Indian OTT market.

Analysts say that platforms SonyLIV and Zee5 whose parent companies Zee Entertainment and Sony Pictures Networks India (SPNI) are set for the merger, may have to work hard on user experience, large-scale content, and distribution in order to emerge a winner and scale-up in the highly fragmented Indian OTT market.