South Korean e-commerce unicorn Coupang is buying the software from Hooq, a video streaming service owned by Singtel, Sony, and Warner Bros focused on the Southeast Asia market and India which filed for liquidation earlier this year, Bloomberg reported yesterday.
With the deal, SoftBank-backed Coupang will enter Southeast Asia highly competitive movie streaming battleground, which already includes Netflix, Amazon, and others. Just last month, Chinese internet giant Tencent also joined in when it bought bought assets of Malaysian video-on-demand platform Iflix.
“I think we can expect to see new entrants, such as HBO Go’s entry into Indonesia earlier this year, and further consolidation,” Joel Shen, a partner at international law firm DWF told KrASIA.
Before shutting down in late April, Hooq operated in five countries, including Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, the Phillippines, and India. Costs were rising quickly, and the company showed insufficient growth to justify sustainable returns.
Former representatives of Hooq Indonesia declined to comment when reached by KrASIA.
Coupang’s representative wasn’t available for a comment.
Coupang is the largest e-commerce platform in South Korea and has been aggressively expanding into new businesses such as food delivery and digital payments. The Seoul-based company has been eyeing a public listing as early as next year, Bloomberg reported in January.