Abu Dhabi Media and China's Huawei Technologies have teamed up to add the UAE public service broadcaster's ADtv mobile application to the Huawei AppGallery, one of the biggest app stores in the world.
The partnership will allow ADtv, among the top free video-on-demand services in the Middle East and North Africa, to be available on Huawei devices, granting viewers instant access to a wide range of entertainment content, Abu Dhabi Media said on Friday.
The partnership will "provide a streamlined and modern viewing experience that keeps up with the rapid changes in the digital entertainment sector", said Haitham Al Kathiri, acting executive director at Abu Dhabi TV Network.
The agreement just before Ramadan, which is expected to begin on Saturday, will give users access to "a wide range of exclusive Ramadan shows, premieres and interactive content produced by Abu Dhabi Media to cater to all tastes of the Arab audience", Mr Al Kathiri said.
Media entertainment and streaming services have increased in popularity, especially during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, as users staying at home access more online entertainment content.
The size of the global video streaming software market – which includes movies, television shows and live-streamed content – is expected to reach $18.1 billion by 2027 at a compound annual growth rate of almost 16 per cent, according to data from Research and Markets.
Production companies are also pouncing on the opportunity; they are spending upwards of $10bn on making original content, Kevin Westcott, an industry leader at London consultancy Deloitte, told Yahoo Finance on Friday.
Overall, app store spending rose 19 per cent annually to $170bn in 2021, which translates to more than $323,000 spent per minute, according to data.ai, the market intelligence platform formerly known as App Annie.
Abu Dhabi is also projected to become a production centre for the film and TV industry. The emirate was one of few areas in the world that managed to maintain production despite pandemic-driven headwinds, Michael Garin, the chief executive of Abu Dhabi media hub twofour54, said last year.
acting executive director, Abu Dhabi TV Network
The ADtv app is available on Google Play and Apple's App Store, the two biggest mobile application marketplaces in the world. It can be accessed on mobile phones and smart TVs, as well as on the TV stick systems of Amazon and Roku.
Adding “the ADtv app to Huawei’s AppGallery will bring consumers one step closer to high-quality exclusive content from the video-on-demand platform using our technologically-advanced products", said Lu Geng, vice president for the Middle East and Africa at Huawei Global Partnerships and Eco-Development.
Huawei's AppGallery is part of its own HarmonyOS software, which it developed in 2019 after being locked out of the Google ecosystem, following its inclusion in the so-called entity list of the US, with Washington saying the company was a national security risk. Shenzhen-based Huawei has denied these claims.
The company said its platform has apps in 18 categories. It is available in more than 170 countries and regions, with 580 million monthly active users. It has partnerships with about 5.4 million registered developers globally.
This week, Huawei reported a 75.9 per cent annual surge in net profits to $17.8bn on revenue of $99.9bn.
