YouTube partners with Indian carrier to offer pre-paid mobile streaming from just $0.15

YouTube teams up with an Indian operator Tata Docomo to offer a new range of ‘YouTube recharge’ data plans to its 3G customers.

The Google owned-video site, offers plans to give customers access to YouTube for half of the regular price and provide greater flexibility. Customers can choose between 100 MB of video content for 9R ($0.15) — which is valid for up to 24 hours and provides 20-30 minutes of 240p quality playback – or 300 MB of content, which is valid for seven days and priced at 39R ($0.65). In addition to YouTube, subscribers can view content from video streaming firm Apalya’s service.

YouTube says that 40 percent of its content is consumed on mobile devices but, in markets like India where many people are leapfrogging the desktop PC experience and going straight to mobile internet, more affordable access and transparent billing are important points for increasing the adoption of mobile data plans.

The deal is a first for India, but YouTube already offers a similar plan in Malaysia in partnership with local operator Digi.