Bolo Indya rolls out Bolo-Live, eyes 3 crore transactions

Bolo Indya said the live streaming feature will allow creators to earn money via virtual gifts from viewers

Bolo Indya on Monday said it has rolled out a live streaming feature that will allow creators to earn money via virtual gifts from viewers, and the short-video platform is looking at enabling three crore such monthly transactions by the end of the year.

"Bolo-Live streaming feature comes with an integrated real-time gamification in a form of gifting option, wherein viewers can send virtual gifts that can later be redeemed in cash by them. The virtual gifts that the creators receive will depend on their follower base basis, content quality, density and engagement," Bolo Indya founder and CEO Varun Saxena told PTI. He added that Bolo-Live, which was in testing for the past few months, has already crossed one lakh monthly transactions.

"We have seen strong response for the feature, especially from the smaller towns. We have seen 7.5-10 per cent of the people joining live sessions pay, and this can go up to 30-40 per cent depending upon the engagement," he said. Saxena added that the number of these transactions is expected to cross 10 lakh a month by end of June, and 3 crore by the end of the year.

Saxena said currently 75-100 daily live sessions are held on the platform and by year-end, this is poised to cross 50,000 daily live sessions. "The move to take Bolo-Live streaming feature to a larger audience is part of our efforts to strengthen the creator economy. Bolo Indya's vision is to empower content creators, especially from 'Bharat' to transform their social capital to financial independence," he said.

Last year, Bolo Indya had launched 'Bolo Meets' feature that allowed creator partners to deliver specialized skill-based services (like astrology, teaching languages or dance etc) to their followers for a fee. Saxena noted that Bolo Indya currently has over 68 lakh users, including 28.50 lakhs creators, that is spread across 14 languages. Bolo Indya expects its user base to grow to 2-3 crore by June-end with at least 25-30 per cent of them being creators. The aim is also to increase creator income by 300 per cent by the end of the year.

The most popular emerging categories for Bolo Live currently includes entertainment, fitness, comedy, fashion and lifestyle, and language learning among others. The average transaction size during live session starts from Rs 20-25 with more than 100 such micro transactions happening for each broadcasting session already. While sending e-gifts is fairly popular in online gaming, the trend is being seen in live events as well, especially after the breakout of the pandemic that has forced these events to go virtual.

Saxena said Bolo Indya has seen good response from across markets. The top performing cities in terms of gifting include Lucknow, Allahabad, Varanasi, Patna, Muzaffarpur, Aurangabad, Aligarh, Jabalpur and Gwalior for Hindi content. In terms of Telegu content, Vijayawada, Guntur, Nellore and Warangal emerged as top performing cities.