After successful tie-up with Madhuri Dixit, Chingari plans skills platform for creators: Sumit Ghosh

In the backdrop of the success of its partnership with Madhuri Dixit’s online dance platform ‘Dance with Madhuri’, short-form video-sharing app Chingari plans to launch a special platform in January on which creators can offer courses for various skills.

“We try to build features that India wants. We never thought that ‘Dance with Madhuri’ will actually get so popular. We just wanted to try it out. Now we have seen it. So we will roll out our own skills platform where any creator can come in to promote their skills. It is kind of innovative what we are trying to do here. We plan to launch it in January,” Sumit Ghosh, Co-founder and CEO of Chingari, said in an exclusive interview with BestMediaInfo.com.

According to Ghosh, since its launch on October 29, the online dance platform has managed to sell over 100 dance courses per week. They are also in talks with other celebrities for such tie-ups.

Chingari Multiplex is another such feature that the app has introduced where its users can watch new films for just Rs 5 to Rs 10. At a time when the Covid-19 pandemic badly hit most cinema theatres, this marks the home-grown app’s foray into digital movie distribution.

“Covid has actually shown producers that there could be alternative distribution other than theatres. India has 130 crore people. A movie from a large production house is released in some 3,000 odd theatres in metros and some small cities that have multiplexes. These theatres cater only to around one crore people. So there still remains around 129 crore people and they largely live in tier II and III cities or in remote parts. They have to wait till it comes to an OTT platform and only around 10% movies actually premiere there. The remaining has to wait for it to come on television or access it through pirated mediums.

“Our app has a reach of around 40 million people out of which 70% population resides in tier II and III cities. So this is a great opportunity for production houses to use our user base and get distribution to these remote users,” Ghosh said.

The app has its own payment solution called Chingari Pay and users can load money through UPI to pay for the movies. While the new releases will be available to users for Rs 5 to Rs 10, they will also have access to over 1,500 old films for free.

Unlike other OTT platforms, this model is not subscription-based and users have to pay only to watch a new movie. Partnering with NH Studioz, Chingari Multiplex was launched in October with a free pack of Amitabh Bachchan movies. It has not had any new releases yet.

“We are still talking to production houses to get our first movie,” said Ghosh.

Chingari Multiplex could prove to be a great platform for regional cinema and for small filmmakers. With 12 different languages on the app, it has scope for country-wide reach.

The app is also preparing to launch social commerce on their platform in the first quarter of 2021. Users can shop for products while watching videos and the entire process will happen within the app.  Unlike ecommerce apps, where they have to advertise on social media apps, the discovery will happen within the social media app.

“We will be warehousing the products and selling it. We are the first to do this in India where you can buy products while watching a video. Generally, influencer marketing is an extension to affiliate marketing where brands pay influencers to post the content on social media. Here, Chingari itself is the social media platform and it will depend on the influencers to make videos. It will disrupt the way social commerce or influencer marketing is done,” said Ghosh.

Though the app was launched in 2018, it became a preferred alternative to TikTok after the government banned the Chinese app. It has since then seen an exponential growth and has 40 million users.

“We are one of the highest user-base in India outside Facebook, Google and other western networks. User-base wise, we provide a good reach to brands. After TikTok has gone, brands are looking for alternatives and we are seeing a lot of brand interests when they want to run hashtag challenges or do sponsored contests with Chingari. So a lot of co-branded content is getting developed,” said Ghosh.