Aha (streaming service)

Allu Aravind revealed that he was enamoured with the digital environment and developed a habit of binge-watching. Soon he came up with the idea of starting a streaming platform for hosting solely Telugu content. Discussion of the idea with his family which led to talks with Jupally Rameswar Rao, who joined as a partner in the venture. Aravind and Ramu Rao are active promoters who run the business, while Meghana Gorukanti Jupally is the head of marketing advisory committee and Ravikant Sabnavis heads the platform as CEO.^[5]

After opting for a soft launch on 8 February 2020 an event named aha Preview was conducted, where all the filmmakers who worked on ''aha Originals'' attended and presented their work.^[8] In November 2020, aha announced actor Allu Arjun as its brand ambassador.^[9] The platform has acquired one million subscribers within a year of its launch,^[10] and by July 2021, it has over 1.5 million paid subscribers. In November 2021, the total paid active subscribers were 1.8 million, and as of 31 March 2024, the total paid active subscribers were 2.5 million,^[6] and 40-million-plus users, catering predominantly to the markets of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana states.^[11]

In August 2021, aha launched aha kids, a sub-brand focusing on children's programming. It is scheduled to launch on 10 September, coinciding with Vinayaka Chavithi.^[12] aha 2.0 was launched^[13] in November 2021 on a cloud-native platform from Firstlight Media.^[14][15]

The Tamil language version of Aha was launched in February 2022.^[16]

Aha was launched for streaming on Tata Play in April 2023.^[17]

The service began its operation by acquiring digital rights of films such as Arjun Suravaram, Kaithi (Telugu dubbed version) and Choosi Choodangaane.^[6]

These products, even though listed as Aha Originals, are programs that Aha has bought exclusive distribution rights to stream them.