Tech Bites: Week of December 9, 2019

LinkedIn reveals top 15 fastest-growing jobs in Singapore

LinkedIn has revealed the top 15 fastest-growing jobs in Singapore, and unsurprisingly the list is dominated by technology-related roles.

The business network has analysed millions of user-input job titles from the last five years to find the top emerging jobs that are seeing strong growth in Singapore.

According to the Emerging Jobs in Singapore list, the top 15 jobs in the market are:

1. Artificial intelligence specialist
2. Robotics engineer
3. Full stack engineer
4. Backend developer
5. Data scientist
6. DevOps engineer
7. Data engineer
8. Cybersecurity specialist
9. Community specialist
10. Partnerships specialist
11. Clinical specialist
12. Ecommerce specialist
13. Customer success specialist
14. Product owner
15. Creative copywriter

Since one of Singapore's key intiatives is becoming a smart nation, it makes sense that artificial intelligence and robotics feature as the top two roles this year.

While the list is mainly dominated by tech, the list also features jobs that require soft skills such as interpersonal connections, innovation and creativity, with roles such as community specialist, customer success specialist and creative copywriter.

Last year data scientist was the top emerging job in Singapore, now featuring as the fifth emerging role.

Netflix on track to spend huge US$423 million on Indian content

Netflix is on track to spend 30 billion Indian rupees—equivalent to around US$423 million—on producing and licensing content in India this year and in 2020, chief executive Reed Hastings has said.

Speaking at a conference in New Delhi, Hastings said: “This year and next year, we plan to spend about Rs 3,000 crores developing and licensing content and you will start to see a lot of stuff hit the screens."

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings speaking at Mobile World Congress in 2017

Netflix has so far produced more than two dozen original shows and movies in the country and has partnerships with several local studios.

The content budget is thought to be much higher than any other rival SVoD will spend on content in India over the two-year period.

Competition between streaming services in India is fierce as both international and local players look to take advantage of the country's huge population and fast-growing economy. Netflix is one of more than 36 streaming services in India, including popular Hotstar, owned by Disney. Disney looks set to roll out its video subscription service Disney+ in India by the second half of 2020 as part of a bundle with Hotstar.

Iflix partners with Migo to reach Indonesia's low internet users

Southeast Asian SVoD Iflix has struck a partnership with Migo, a last mile content distribution network, to allow the video service to reach Asian consumers with limited online connectivity.

The two platforms have signed a Memorandum of Understanding in Indonesia, where 200 million people have limited access to the internet. 

It will allow Iflix to distribute its content on Migo's O2O (online-to-offline) video player in Indonesia, which allows subscribers to download content to their mobile devices at Migo's offline network of local WiFi hotspots, rather than using up mobile data to download or stream content. Migo is targeted at low- and middle-income consumers who may not be able to afford full data packages.

While opening up a new audience for Iflix, the addition of Iflix's premium content library will help drive Migo’s customer acquisition and engagement. At launch in Q1 2020, Migo Indonesia will heavily feature iflix content alongside other carefully curated films and TV series from Indonesia, the SE Asian region, and beyond.

“Working with Migo will allow iflix to tap into the C/D consumer segments that account for 60% of the Indonesian market," said Iflix cofounder and executive director Mark Britt.

“Migo’s technology is transformative for data distribution in emerging markets. We see today’s partnership in Indonesia as just the first step to bringing iflix content to hundreds of millions of customers in other critical markets, from the Philippines to Myanmar to Bangladesh and beyond," added Patrick Grove, Iflix cofounder and group chairman.