Gulf’s retail giant, Lulu partners with an innovative platform, FilMe to exclusively release and sell movies
FilMe and Lulu have recently enteredinto an exclusive partnership to distribute movies in a big way in the Gulf. While FilMe has collaborations with many established production houses, they are now looking at premiering the first day first show content. On FilMe, new films will be priced at just AED 20 offering customers a significant value in comparison to theatres. Lulu’ s new entertainment vertical is now providing the sale of these FilMe cards on their online webstore as well along with their 204 retail supermarkets across the GCC.
The Lulu group, the largest retail business group in West Asia operates shopping centres, hypermarkets, and hospitality businesses around the world. With daily operations in 22 countries and 202 hypermarkets serving more than 1.6 million customers, Lulu will add huge depth to the distribution of this new innovative product. V. Nandakumar, Director Marketing & Communications at Lulu Group International, said “We are very excited to be part of this innovative movie viewing experience. With the current safety protocols in place, there is huge growing demand for home entertainment, and I think FilMe will be the perfect option, especially with its low cost and easy-to-use proposition.”
FilMe viewers do not have to pay for subscriptions, monthly commitments, or search from hordes of apps on smartphone to enjoy that movie that they wanted to see. On FilMe, one can watch movies the ala carte way (pay per view) by just scanning a QR code using phone’s camera. Viewer can watch films without any subscription and app download, in a matter of seconds.
“Our primary value add is the reprieve from overpriced 3-4 monthly subscriptions that consumers take and do not even use to the optimum. Also, FilMe addresses the problem of over choice saving you browsing time through thousands of titles. Our wide online and offline distribution ensures that we give what you want to watch, right when you want to watch. After our tie up with Lulu, we can break through into the vast diaspora from the Indian subcontinent who binge on movies,” says Dr Abhishek Shukla, Founder of FilMe.
For starters FilMe, a market disruptor in OTT market, with its entirely new technology enables viewers to watch content with a QR code and comes in the form of a physical card, recently acquired the Tamil blockbuster Master starring Vijay and Vijay Sethupati within 15 days of its theatrical release. With this new tie-up FilMe can provide an unmatched revenue potential for distributors and producers from GCC market.
