Though all traditional media verticals reported negative growth over the previous year, digital subscriptions grew by 49%, according to the fourth edition of the Indian Over-the-Top (OTT) Platforms Report 2021 (post-pandemic consumption), published by MICA Ahmedabad and released in association with Ahmedabad-based start-up Communication Crafts. The report’s data has been analysed by Comscore, an American media measurement and analytics company. The reach of online music consumers is touted to be 205 million (EY FICCI, 2021), according to the report which takes into account the period between April 2020 and March 2021.
Shailendra Raj Mehta, President & Director, MICA, said, “The year 2020-21 was particularly significant, with the pandemic forcing consumers to stay homebound. This brought about a paradigm shift in consumption patterns.”
According to figures from PwC’s ‘Global Entertainment & Media Outlook 2020–2024’, quoted in the MICA report, “India holds the most potential of any market in the world and its breakneck rate of growth will see total OTT video revenue overtake South Korea, Germany, and Australia to jump to be the sixth-largest market in 2024.” This segment will grow at a CAGR of 28.6% over the next four years to touch revenues of $2.9 billion.
Nikhil Shah, CEO and Founder, Cilans Systems (Data Science and Blockchain Solutions) said in the report, “Blockchain-controlled change is inescapable, and the speed of experimentation and advancement is amazing. It’s justifiable given that Blockchain will give a business an addition of $176 billion by 2025 and $3.1 trillion by 2030 (Gartner, 2019) across ventures. Blockchain innovation can address the media and OTT industry’s long-standing battles with issues.”
The Indian OTT market (video and audio) is currently estimated at $1.8 billion (Rs 13,500 crores) and is further expected to grow to $4.2 billion by 2025 and $12.5 billion by 2030.
The OTT market in India is estimated to grow at the CAGR of 28.6% over the next 4 years, according to Kandaswamy Bharathan, Joint Managing Director, Kavithalayaa Productions Pvt. Ltd. & Visiting Faculty, MICA & IIM A.
There were 448.0 million social media users in India as of January 2021, which has increased by 78 million (+21%) between 2020 and 2021. This is equivalent to 32.3% of the total population till January 2021. Mobile connections in India have also seen a shift with 1.10 billion mobile connections recorded in India by January 2021. This figure has increased by 23 million (+2.1%) between the time period of January 2020 and January 2021. Mobile connections in India in January 2021 were equivalent to 79.0% of the total population.
While Indian consumers love to access content for free, 29 million subscribers paid for 53 million OTT video subscriptions in 2020 and of this, only one in three (33%) subscribe to a paid version of a music streaming platform. However, music as a category grew from the consumption point of view. The previous year also brought about a big shift in the revenue streams of the music industry, where streaming revenue proved to be the highest contributor due to the increased digital consumption of music.
Highlights from the report’s data on music
Arijit Singh is the No. 1 artist across all major music streaming platforms.
Men consume more music that women
- Prime Music is accessed three times more by men above the age of 35 years as compared to women above 35. Similarly, most men between the ages 25-34 years frequent the app while women of that age group are five times fewer.
- Spotify too, The platform has 1.5 times more male users than female.
- Most female audiences for Wynk Music fall in the age group of 15-24 years, but their number is significantly fewer compared to their male counterparts.
There is a huge emphasis on regional content
- Amazon Prime Video invested in in content in more than 10 languages, focusing on Tier 2 cities.
- On the other hand, Punjabi, Telugu, and Tamil seem to be the most streamed regional languages on Spotify. In February 2021, Spotify’s virtual ‘Stream On’ event announced that it would be focusing more on getting Kannada, Bhojpuri, and Bengali music on board.
- Punjabi seems to be the most popular language on Wynk with more than 120 curated playlists. Marathi playlists follow the lead with Bengali, Tamil, and Telugu music.
- Gaana’s CEO stated that with streaming platforms gaining recognition in tier 1, 2, and 3 cities, regional music saw a meaningful rise of 30x times as compared to Bollywood, which only saw a 5x growth in the past three years. Gaana supports 3.3 billion streams in which regional music consumption holds a significant 35% contribution. Bollywood music listenership contrarily dropped from 70% to 50%.
Podcasts are big
- Prime Music has finally added podcasts to its streaming service, providing 9 million+ episodes for its paid members
- Spotify witnessed a 1,100% growth as seen with Hindi podcasts hosted on podcast creation tool Anchor.
- Gaana released about 100 original podcasts
- Wynk Music also finally added podcasts
- JioSaavn set up JioSaavn Yourcast for independent podcasters and launched the We are India’ campaign for regional podcasters
- Hungama Music plans to release 30 new original podcasts in collaboration with HubHopper
Read the full report here