As the smart TV landscape in India continues to evolve rapidly, CloudTV is leading the charge with its innovative, Made-in-India operating system tailored for Indian consumers. At Convergence India, CloudTV participated to showcase its expanding ecosystem and cutting-edge solutions. In an engaging conversation, Rajeev Ranjan, Editor of Digital Terminal, spoke with Abhijeet Rajpurohit, Co-founder & COO of CloudTV, to delve into the company’s journey, strategic vision, and the milestones that lie ahead. From deeper OEM partnerships to international expansion, this interview offers a closer look at how CloudTV is redefining the future of smart entertainment in India and beyond.
Rajeev: What are the key objectives behind CloudTV’s participation in Convergence India?
Abhijeet: Our objective is to expand our reach beyond our annual CloudTV Summit, which primarily caters to our OEM partners and the brands we collaborate with. This year, we are showcasing a broader range of our products and wanted to present them not only to our partners but also to a wider audience. That’s why we are here at Convergence India—to connect, engage, and demonstrate our innovations to a larger community.
Rajeev: What was the core idea behind CloudTV’s inception, and how has the journey evolved since? What key factors have driven its growth and success?
Abhijeet: CloudTV is primarily a smart TV operating system. We initially started by powering a few brands and gradually expanded our reach by collaborating with more OEMs and brands in India.
Until recently, our focus was primarily on working with OEMs and brands, but we have now extended our partnerships to include key players in the TV supply chain, such as SoC manufacturers and PCB partners. This deeper integration ensures that CloudTV is embedded at every stage of the TV manufacturing process in India.
Our goal is to make affordable smart TVs more feature-rich, packed with official applications that enhance the user experience. By doing so, we aim to provide consumers with premium features that were traditionally available only on high-end TVs, ensuring that high-quality entertainment is accessible to a wider audience.
Rajeev: As CloudTV drives wider adoption, what consumer trends are shaping the market—affordability or feature-rich experiences? How do you guide brands and OEMs to align with these evolving preferences?
Abhijeet: There is a clear trend toward smart TV adoption, driven by increasing internet penetration in India and the rapid growth of OTT platforms. While metropolitan consumers frequently upgrade their TVs, the real market expansion is happening in tier-2 and tier-3 cities, where many consumers are purchasing their first smart TV.
At CloudTV, we collaborate with brands to ensure they can offer affordable, feature-rich smart TVs in these emerging markets. Consumers are becoming more tech-savvy and increasingly aware of the content and channels available on smart TVs, eliminating the need for additional set-top boxes or cables. As a result, smart TV adoption continues to grow steadily, making advanced entertainment solutions more accessible to a wider audience.
Rajeev: What key initiatives or innovations set CloudTV apart from the competition? What makes your approach unique in the market?
Abhijeet: CloudTV is a homegrown brand, built in India for India. Unlike many global operating systems that treat India as just another market, we focus on understanding and addressing the unique challenges faced by Indian brands and consumers.
One of our key differentiators is our deep integration with local OTT platforms—not just national services but also regional content providers, which play a significant role in how users consume entertainment. Additionally, we go beyond conventional offerings by ensuring features like voice assistants support not only Hindi and English but also regional languages, making smart TVs more accessible and user-friendly for Indian audiences. By prioritizing local needs, we provide a more customized and immersive experience, setting ourselves apart from global competitors.
Rajeev: What key factors have driven CloudTV’s success so far? What major challenges did you face, and how do you see the next two years unfolding as you scale further?
Abhijeet: When we started CloudTV, our initial goal was to develop an operating system for our own televisions. At the time, we explored working with global operating systems, but they lacked adequate support for the Indian market. We quickly realized that this was a challenge not just for us, but for all brands trying to sell smart TVs in India.
This led us to diversify and offer CloudTV as a solution to others in the market, including competitors, who eventually became our partners. The support of our partners and the application ecosystem has been instrumental in our growth. However, our core mission has remained the same: to provide users with the best smart TV features and content, while helping our ecosystem partners differentiate their products in the market.
From the beginning, CloudTV has positioned itself as a platform-first company—not just a television brand or an application provider, but an enabler for the entire smart TV ecosystem. Now, we are taking our vision further. This year, we have expanded into set-top boxes, addressing the demand from internet providers and cable operators for more affordable, high-performance solutions. Looking ahead, we are also gearing up for international expansion, with plans to launch in Bangladesh and the MENA region. This marks an exciting step in bringing an Indian-built smart TV platform to global markets.
Rajeev: What’s your message to OEMs yet to adopt CloudTV, and how can they gain from your ecosystem?
Abhijeet: We would love to host you and showcase what we are building and how CloudTV stands apart from international players. With the Make in India movement driving manufacturing growth, we believe there is an equally strong momentum in the software space. We encourage you to explore the innovations happening around you—you may be surprised to see that India has the potential to compete with, and even surpass, many global players.
Rajeev: What key milestones lie ahead for CloudTV?
Abhijeet: We are confident that CloudTV is revolutionizing the market, enabling brands to achieve what might not have been possible with other players. Our goal is not just to expand our ecosystem in terms of numbers, but also to continuously introduce new and innovative products. We are committed to reaching key distribution milestones while also broadening our impact beyond televisions. A key focus for the coming years is to power not only smart TVs but also DTH operators, further strengthening our position in the industry.
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