JAKARTA (REUTERS) - Indonesian ride-hailing and payments firm Gojek launched a video-streaming service featuring original movies and TV shows on Thursday (Sept 26), as the firm makes a big push into online content in South-east Asia's largest economy, its entertainment chief said.

"We see that there's a gap where people want to watch Indonesian high-quality content, but where the only choice to see it is to go to the cinema," Gojek Entertainment group chief executive Edy Sulistyo told Reuters in an interview.

"With 'Goplay', we are here to fill the gap and bridge the millions of Indonesian mobile viewers to the Indonesian film industry," he added, referring to the name of the new video-streaming platform.

Having evolved from a ride-hailing service founded in 2010 to providing a one-stop app through which users can make online payments and order food and services such as massages, Gojek is now nursing ambitions for a larger share of the South-east Asian market, where Singapore-based rival Grab currently dominates ride-sharing.

The launch of its Indonesian video platform sees the start-up, which is valued at US$10 billion (S$13.8 billion) based on its last round of fund raising in July, take on US streaming giant Netflix, Malaysian upstart Iflix, and Singaporean firm and Grab partner Hooq in a fight for eyeballs in the country's fast-growing video-streaming market.

"Mobile penetration in Indonesia has reached 54 per cent, which is roughly 130-140 million people, so the potential is very big," Mr Edy said.

The expansion into video streaming comes on the heels of Gojek launching in September a gaming platform in Indonesia, in collaboration with strategic investors Google and Chinese Internet giant Tencent, that offers gaming credit top-ups and e-sports tips.

Gojek also invested in a digital media start-up late last year as it strengthened its expansion into online content.

Indonesia's Internet economy is forecast to grow to US$100 billion by 2025, according to a 2018 study by Google and Singapore state investor Temasek, as more consumers use smartphones to go online.

INDONESIAN CONTENT

Subscriptions to the Goplay mobile-only video-streaming platform will start at 89,000 rupiah (S$8.65) a month.

While some of its rivals, including Netflix, have produced Indonesian content, Mr Edy believes the breadth and quality of the Indonesian movies and TV series Gojek is offering will give it the edge, including a three- to five-minute short films section.

Gojek has secured the streaming rights to hundreds of recent Indonesian films and shows.

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It launched its own in-house studio in 2018 in anticipation of the platform, co-financing at least nine different original Indonesian movies and series, including Indonesia's 2019 Academy Awards nominee Memories Of My Body.

This was done in part through partnerships with Vice Media's Indonesia unit and film production company Visinema.

The executive declined to say how big an overall budget Gojek has allocated to the initiative, but added that the company was working with a wide range of production houses for its programming, which would be recalibrated according to viewers' responses.

While focused on Indonesian content, Mr Edy said Gojek had also inked some tie-ups with foreign production companies for partial access to their libraries, including with South Korean entertainment powerhouses CJ E&M and SM Entertainment for TV shows.

"We want to spend enough to satisfy demand," he said, noting there were no short-term plans to expand Goplay beyond Indonesia.