Viu

Case Pack — Company Prep Material

History

Launched 26 October 2015 in Hong Kong, built by PCCW Media Group after PCCW acquired the streaming service Vuclip (~$166M, June 2015) and relaunched it as Viu
Founding bet: fast releases of accurately subtitled Korean/Chinese drama content — widely described in trade press as targeting the region's huge illegal/piracy consumption of Korean dramas
Early growth centered on speed-to-market localisation, expanding from Hong Kong into Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa through the late 2010s

Headline Collage

2016 (Jan 11) — PCCW (own release): "PCCW Media's Viu OTT video service launches in Singapore" — Viu's second market, alongside "the first landmark pan-regional agreement with Korea's top four broadcasters"
2016 (Mar 4) — PCCW (own release): "PCCW Media's Viu OTT video service expands to India and Malaysia further to its launch in Hong Kong and Singapore"
2016 (May) — Exchange4media: "Vuclip launches OTT Service- Viu in Indonesia"
2016 (Jul 11) — Marketing-Interactive: "Viu launches premium subscription with Singtel" its first move beyond pure freemium/ad-supported into a paid subscription tier
2016 (Nov 29) — PCCW (own release): "Viu achieves 4 million users across Asia in first year of launch. Service further expands to the Philippines."
2017 (Feb) — Rapid TV News: "Viu launches in Middle East" — Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE
2017 (May 17) — PCCW (own release): "Viu launches in Thailand" — Viu reaches 15 markets across Asia and the Middle East
2017 (Aug 10) — TechCrunch: "PCCW Media raises $110M for its video and music streaming services in Asia"; Variety: "Hony, Foxconn, Temasek Back PCCW Streaming Ventures" — Hony Capital, Foxconn Ventures, and Temasek take an 18% stake in PCCW's international OTT business (parent of Viu, Vuclip, and MOOV) at an implied $611M valuation;
2018 (Sep) — Rapid TV News: "Viu launches in Myanmar"
2019 (Mar 1) — The Economic Times: "Viu launches OTT service in South Africa" — Viu's first African market
2019 (Dec 16) — afaqs!: "Viu to shut India operations" (services actually ceased Nov 2021)
2020 (Q4, reported Mar 2021) — Manila Bulletin: "Viu ranks first in monthly active users in Southeast Asia, says report" — 30.5 million MAU, #1 among streamers in Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand, per AMPD Research/Media Partners Asia
2021 (Aug, reporting H1 2021) — Manila Bulletin: "Viu hits over 7-M paid subscribers..." — MAU up 37% YoY to 49.4 million, paid subscribers up 62% YoY to over 7 million, #1 MAU in Southeast Asia for a 7th consecutive quarter
2021 — Variety: "Viu Overtakes Netflix in Southeast Asia SVOD Subscriptions" — per Media Partners Asia (Q2 2021), Viu (5.2M subscribers) passed Netflix (4.8M) to become #2 in the region, behind Disney+ (~6M)
2023 (Feb) — Variety: "Asian Streamer Viu Approaches Profitability, Divulges Subscriber and Revenue Data" — FY2022: 66.4 million MAU (+13% YoY), 12.2 million paid subscribers (+45% YoY), revenue $206 million (+45% YoY)
2023 (Jun 21) — Variety: "France's Canal+ Buying Strategic Minority Stake in Viu, Successful Asian Streamer"; Deadline: "Canal+ Takes 26% Stake In Leading Asian Streamer Viu; Talks Growth & Content Collaboration"
2024 (Jun) — Sportcal: "Canal Plus ups Viu stake to almost 37%" — completing the full staggered $300M investment
2025 (H1) — PCCW interim results (company's own release; no independent news article located) — OTT Business revenue up 10% to HK$1,194 million, with Viu contributing close to 90%; Viu's paid subscribers reached 13.8 million, up 19% YoY
2026 (Jun 17, APOS 2026, Bali) — Variety: "Viu CEO Says Nearly 20% of Long-Form Users Now Watch Microdrama as Streamer Expands Branded Content and Co-Production Push" *
2026 (Jun 17) — Deadline: "Viu & iQiyi International To Launch Streaming Bundle In Southeast Asia"

3 Articles

Variety — "France's Canal+ Buying Strategic Minority Stake in Viu, Successful Asian Streamer" (Jun 21, 2023)
https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/canal-minority-stake-viu-asian-streaming-1235650379/
Covers the ownership/capital story: why a European pay-TV group bought into a Southeast Asian streamer, and what control PCCW/Richard Li retained.
Variety — "Viu CEO Says Nearly 20% of Long-Form Users Now Watch Microdrama as Streamer Expands Branded Content and Co-Production Push" (Jun 2026)
https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/viu-microdrama-users-branded-content-kocca-apos-2026-1236786528/
Covers the strategic bet: Viu's push into ad-funded microdrama and branded content as a second growth lane alongside its core subscription business.
Deadline — "Viu & iQiyi International To Launch Streaming Bundle In Southeast Asia" (Jun 2026)
https://deadline.com/2026/06/viu-pccw-iqiyi-international-bundle-southeast-asia-1236958104/
Covers the competitive/customer strategy: two regional rivals choosing to bundle catalogues rather than compete head-on for the same subscribers.

2 Videos

"APOS 2023 Highlights | Janice Lee, CEO, Viu and PCCW Media Group"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJGL-XTjeWY
on localised content, pricing adjustments, metrics (i.e. acquisition and retention), new categories of content
"In conversation with: Janice Lee, Managing Director, PCCW Media" (All That Matters 2019, in conversation with Rob Gilby; published Sept 30, 2020)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bPOPzKi34U
Recommended chapters: Partnership, Business Model, Ecosystem

Intended Output (Reference)

What this Case Pack should equip the group to answer, structured against the 7 locked CEO Interview questions. Bullet points only — this is prep material, not a script to recite.

Company Snapshot

1. When and where were you founded, and how has your business model evolved since?

Launched 2015 in Hong Kong under PCCW Media Group (Richard Li's telecom conglomerate)
Founding bet: fast, accurately subtitled Korean/Chinese drama content — a value proposition widely described as targeting the region's illegal/piracy consumption, though not confirmed against one rigorous primary source
Grew from a Hong Kong-first platform to a 16-market footprint across Asia, the Middle East, and Africa
2023: sold a 26.1% stake to Canal+ (France) for $200M, staggered to $300M — first major outside strategic investor, without ceding operating control
Business model evolving from pure licensed-drama subscription toward a dual bet: core subscription/advertising plus ad-funded "microdrama" short-form content

2. What's your scale today — revenue, valuation, or audience size?

15.5 million paid subscribers (FY2024, +17% YoY); 13.8 million by mid-2025 interim reporting (+19% YoY), with growth concentrated in Thailand, the Philippines, and Malaysia
Contributes close to 90% of PCCW's OTT Business revenue (HK$1,194M in H1 2025, +10% YoY)
2022 figures (last disclosed full-year MAU/revenue): 66.4 million monthly active users, revenue $206 million (+45% YoY) — corrected from a previously stated $250M/+36%, which didn't match PCCW's own primary disclosure
Implied valuation ~$766M as of the 2023 Canal+ stake sale — a derived figure from the deal math ($200M ÷ 26.1%), not one directly quoted in press coverage
Canal+ has since increased its stake to almost 37% (as of mid-2024), its own decision as an outside investor

3. What do you sell and who pays for it? What are your largest cost drivers or investments?

Sells subscriptions and advertising; increasingly, branded/co-produced short-form content that advertisers fund directly
Runs a dual model: a free, ad-supported (AVOD) tier alongside the paid subscription tier — the free tier is what carries most of the ad load
Ad placement is standard in-stream video advertising (pre-roll, mid-roll, post-roll) across the free tier's content library, plus branded-content integrations agencies can buy directly into premium titles (a Philippines ad-sales partnership expanded this in Nov 2025)
Newest ad surface: Viu Shorts (microdrama) — ad-funded short-form content, a distinct inventory type from the long-form pre/mid-roll model
Households pay for subscriptions (ad-free tier); advertisers pay for inventory across both the free tier and, increasingly, for content itself
Largest cost driver: licensing Korean and Chinese drama content, plus fast-turnaround localisation/subtitling
Growing investment: Viu Originals (e.g. Reborn Rich) and Viu Shorts (microdrama) production — both confirmed as genuine Viu-associated titles, not a mix-up with rival platforms

Strategic Direction

4. What's the one number you'd watch every week to know if you're winning?

Paid subscriber growth in the fastest-growing markets (Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia)
Share of long-form users also consuming microdrama (~20% as of mid-2026) — the clearest signal the second bet is working, not cannibalising the first

5. What's your biggest strategic bet right now — where are you investing or repositioning?

Microdrama and ad-funded short-form content as a second growth lane alongside core subscription
The June 2026 iQIYI International bundle — pooling catalogues with a regional rival rather than competing head-on for the same Southeast Asian subscribers
Continued localisation speed (subtitling within hours of broadcast) as the durable moat against global platforms

6. What's the biggest threat to your position — a competitor, a technology shift, or something structural in your market?

Global platforms (Netflix, Disney+) with far larger content budgets competing for the same regional attention
A fragmented, non-homogeneous market (Janice Lee's own framing) — Southeast Asia isn't one audience, raising the cost of doing localisation right at scale
Dependence on licensed Korean/Chinese content exposes Viu to upstream licensing-cost inflation and rival-platform bidding wars for the same titles

The CEO's Seat

7. What keeps you up at night?

What would keep me up at night is whether our head start in hyper-local content and ecosystems would still be enough if a bigger platform decided to copy our playbook with their budget behind it — especially while we're already running two growth bets at once (core subscription scale-up and microdrama diversification)
What would keep me up at night is whether bundling with iQIYI International is the right move. Are we genuinely building something together, or just delaying the moment we end up competing head-on for the same subscriber anyway? Would we still have the leverage to negotiate as equals if that day comes?