This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on April 28, 2017

KUALA LUMPUR: Media Prima Television Networks (MPTN), the television unit of listed Media Prima Bhd, is venturing into Singapore through a strategic partnership with Singapore Telecommunications Ltd (Singtel) to bring its over-the-top (OTT) streaming service called tonton there. This is tonton’s first foreign venture.

Both tonton and Singtel signed a strategic marketing partnership agreement on the sidelines of Apos 2017 in Bali yesterday, where tonton will be offered on Singtel’s Cast OTT video portal app at special rates exclusively for Singtel customers starting next month.

“We have been working to look at efficient ways to make tonton available outside of Malaysia and the first partnership we have is with Singtel, which is our distribution partner for Singapore,” MPTN chief executive officer Datuk Kamal Khalid told The Edge Financial Daily.

“Hopefully once this stabilises and we kick off this partnership with Singtel, the next step is to look at other countries around the region to see if we can forge similar partnerships to several other markets,” he said.

Kamal said the company has identified several potential collaborations, but “they are not quite as far along as with Singtel”.

“We are hopeful of announcing maybe another one soon before end of the year,” he added.

When it was launched in August 2010, tonton was the first local video portal in Malaysia. Last year, it included a subscription income model for its relauched tonton video-on-demand services.

Today, tonton has a base of 6.8 million users.

In a statement yesterday, Singtel managing director of home, consumer Singapore Goh Seow Eng said: “OTT content plays a major role in our strategy to connect with customers and we are always looking to satisfy their diverse viewing needs by delivering more on-the-go premium content to their multiple devices.”

“With tonton on our popular OTT platform CAST, we are offering over 25,000 hours of top-rated Malay-language entertainment to our Malay customers,” he added.

“Our aim is to grow tonton both locally and internationally. Locally, we strive to upgrade tonton services and offerings in order to give high value for money to our users,” said Kamal.

“Internationally, we hope to expand the brand and its content reach in order to cater to the needs of our fans who reside outside of Malaysia while helping share our local content to the world,” he added.