U Mobile Sdn Bhd is collaborating with YouTube and Tonton to offer U Mobile customers free data for non-stop video streaming of YouTube and Tonton contents.
Offered as an add on service, all U Mobile Prepaid (with data packages) and Postpaid customers will enjoy free YouTube and Tonton streaming from 2am – 10am without affecting their data quota. All U Mobile customers who subscribe to internet plans can automatically enjoy this special offering and will be notified via SMS during the promotion period starting from 8 October to 31 December 2014. A daily quota of 500MB will be applied. Upon completely utilising the 500MB, customers will be throttled to 512kbps speeds. The 500MB quota will be renewed daily.
U Mobile customers can continue the video streaming add-on at just RM3 a month from January 2015 onwards.
“Mobile data is slowly becoming a need for today’s consumers, especially urbanites as smart devices play a vital role in connectivity, entertainment as well as our daily routine. Addressing the current consumer trend of streaming video content on mobile devices, we are proud to introduce this video streaming add-on, which is testament to U Mobile’s efforts in constantly catering towards consumers’ ever-changing lifestyles and needs through our innovative product offerings,” said Jasmine Lee, Chief Marketing Officer of U Mobile Sdn Bhd.
“We are glad to be partnering with YouTube as well as Tonton to bring this exciting product to the market. We certainly look forward to more fruitful collaborations with both companies, as well as other internet-based platforms in the near future to strengthen our foothold as a strong and innovative data-centric player in the market,” she added.
The mobile operator said its collaboration with YouTube and Tonton represents the telco’s initiative to reach out to its target audiences, which are mainly youths and young executives – similar to the viewer demographics of both video platforms. Many of the viewers tuning in to YouTube and Tonton fall within the age group of 18 to 35 years old, with both platforms being the go-to channels for online entertainment, such as catching up on consumers’ favourite movies or music content.
As such, U Mobile said it is seizing the opportunity to work alongside both video platforms to bring an affordable video streaming experience to more customers. The telco leverages on consumers’ preference, familiarity and trust towards the established video channels, as well as the telco’s network capabilities in delivering high speed mobile internet services for seamless connectivity, as well as music and video streaming.
In addition, the partnership with U Mobile also offers opportunities to both YouTube and Tonton in reaching out to a specific group of viewers or audiences as the partnership enables both entities to tap into the telco’s existing and prospective customers, as the offering will directly increase viewership and traffic for both platforms within the timeframe.
“With viewing habits becoming increasingly mobile, we want to make sure we can help people watch YouTube whenever and wherever they want it. By working with U Mobile to provide new ways of accessing videos on their service, we hope to help Malaysians get more out of YouTube at more affordable prices,” said Matthew Zaheen, Head of Marketing, Google Malaysia.
Google Malaysia told MalaysianWireless that there are no YouTube catching servers located within the U Mobile network. Basically, catching servers allows faster loading of a Youtube video from local servers instead of streaming it from Singapore or US.
“As we are celebrating Tonton’s 4th Anniversary, we are very excited to be part of this partnership as it enables our over 4 million registered users and potential users a brilliant opportunity to enjoy video streaming on mobile devices, without concerns over data usage. We have seen the traffic doubled on Tonton via mobile devices since January 2013 and it now accounts for up to 60% of overall daily traffic. With Tonton, U Mobile users can enjoy a wide array of entertainment including catch up TV programmes from TV3, ntv7, 8TV and TV9, Hollywood box office movies, Korean dramas, Tonton Original Series “Hanya Satu” and many more,” said Lam Swee Kim, Group General Manager of Media Prima Digital.
The introduction of U Mobile’s free data for non-stop video streaming with YouTube and Tonton is in line with the company’s recently announced Vision 2 Million campaign – U Mobile’s pledge to grow its subscriber base with 2 million new customers by the end of the year.
