India’s Over the Top (OTT) Entertainment Industry is burgeoning into a multi-billion-dollar industry, cannibalizing into the established bastion of traditional television, radio and cinema auditorium forms of media and entertainment.
The size of the OTT market in FY20 stood in the range of US$ 1.7 Billion (both Video and Audio). Home-grown Independent Transaction Advisory firm RBSA Advisors believes that this industry has the potential to grow to be US$ 15 Billion Industry over the next 9 to 10 years.
With access to better networks, digital connectivity and smartphones, OTT platforms in India have increasingly attracted subscribers on a concurrent basis. Apart from top favourites viz Disney+ Hotstar, Amazon Prime Video and Netflix, space is seeing many local and regional OTT players, such as SonyLIV, Voot, Zee5, Eros Now, AL Balaji, Hoichoi and Adda Times, to name just a few.
Rajeev Shah, MD & CEO RBSA Advisors, “Covid-19 has changed the way audience consume media. An undeniable trend surfaced in this period with the adoption of OTTs. The growing market and consumer appetite for content of choice available on OTT platforms fuelled this spurt. OTTs offer a never before consumer experience–choice of content, ease of access, choice of device/mediums (hand phone, laptop, tablet or TV screen), liberal censorship policy.”
Adds Shah, “We find ourselves in extraordinary times, where pandemic has had a negative effect on many traditional sectors. Conversely covid has accelerated the shift in consumers’ behaviour, pulling forward OTT disruption, otherwise which would have taken minimum half a decade.”
NV Capital Co-Founder and Managing Partner Vivek Menon adds, “India is the next bastion after US for boosting the subscriber base of International OTT players given the highly regulated environment of International OTT players in China. Add to that there are many international entrants like Comcast owned “Peacock” & HBO sitting on the fence waiting to make their mark in India. Looking at this trend as well as the rapid rise of home-grown OTT providers, this industry will continue its strong growth momentum in the years to come.”
The quality of content will always remain a significant driver of consumer growth. In recent years, we have witnessed a massive rise in original content being aired on OTT platforms. Apart from creating original content and facilitating binge-watching, networks and production houses have also begun to see value in getting rights to live events and performances. Audiences in India recently saw Filmfare and streaming social networks join forces for the first-ever OTT awards. This was a landmark event for India’s media and entertainment industry.
The massive investments made by OTT services like Netflix, Amazon, Disney+ Hotstar and others in original as well as acquired content will help subscription video-on-demand make up a lion share of the total OTT revenues going forward. Further, the next wave of growth in the OTT landscape will come from tier 2,3,4 cities and the Indian language speaking population.
Key Factors Driving the industry
• India has the second-highest per capita consumption of online video in the world
• Cheapest mobile data in the world at INR 18.5/GB (2015 – INR313/GB)
• Growth in rural internet penetration
• The number of smartphone users in India is increasing at astronomical rate
•The average monthly data usage per user in India increased 20% year-on-year to 13.5 GB in December 2020 as Indians spent about five hours daily on a smartphone, as per the Mobile Broadband India Traffic Index (Mbit) 2021.
• Smartphones with affordable data have also brought the vibrant native speakers base of 22 scheduled Indian languages from Tier 2, 3, 4 cities online and created a massive opportunity
• The next wave of growth in the OTT landscape will come from our very own Tier 2,3,4 cities and the Indian language speaking population
• The viewing habits of Indian consumers have evolved a lot in the last few years. While on the one hand, short-form video content consumption on smartphones and social platforms has been on the rise, binge-watching shows on various OTT platforms have also become more common on the other hand