4 Key Trends Contributing to the Growth of OTT Services in India

India is perceived as an attractive business landscape by global digital content brand players. This fact can be corroborated by the recent entry of Netflix and Amazon Prime Video in India. The factors like exponential growth of Smartphone users, and introduction of high speed internet services have encouraged OTT service providers to establish their presence in India. For novices, OTT refers to delivery of TV and film content online, without requiring a user to subscribe to satellite or traditional cable.

OTT Growth Trends India:

Also, India government’s Digital India initiative, inaugurated on 1 July 2015, is considered a positive signal by the several OTT and Video on Demand (VOD) service providers. Here, we will discuss all the above-discussed factors, as well as other factors that ensure a bright future for OTT in India.

• Smartphone Penetration: Smartphones have initiated a new era of television viewing in India. Smartphones with large screens, and enhanced audio and video quality have made the switch from traditional to digital medium easier for a young generation. It is estimated that by 2020, the smartphone penetration in India will be 520 million and broadband usage will rise by 40%. This shift is not supposed to affect TV viewership, rather it will boost a person’s online time. With people preferring to catch up their favourite TV series on their mobile, there will be a rise in individual escapism (watching content individually).
• Snackable Content: The average length of time spent on video viewing in India is below 20 minutes. Various studies indicate that about 62% of YouTube users in India prefer to watch short and snackable content. This realisation has inspired top digital content producers like Star, Ping, Eros International, TVF, and Ping to come up with snackable and short form entertaining content. This short and entertaining story telling trend is driving the growth of digital content visualisation in India.
• High-speed Internet and Increasing Bandwidth: With every major telecom service provider rolling out lucrative 4G plans at affordable prices, industry experts suggest that the demand for online content will increase tremendously. According to Deloitte, fast internet speed at affordable tariff rates, and low-cost Smartphones are the two key contributors to the growth of internet users in India. In India, even rural customers are shifting to online content. With the government’s demonitisation drive in 2016, rural population is driven to take up digitisation seriously. Currently, India’s internet community comprises 35% rural customers, which will continue to grow in 2017. The total of internet subscribers in India was 462, 124, 989, which was 27% increase against 354,114,747 in 2015.
  
  Currently, an average Indian consumer uses 750MB internet data per month. This indicates business opportunities for VOD players such as Viacom 18, Hotstar, Press Play, Netflix, etc. Currently, most popular OTT players are making revenues through ad-supported models and freemium subscriptions. Initially, VOD players are luring their unique customers through free subscriptions, and converting them into paid subscribers. Hence, the market potential for digital content is huge, believe experts. 
• Original Content: This is going to be a key trend in 2017 and future too. People are always ready to spend on original content. This reality is driving OTT service providers to invest in original content programs. By the end of 2016, many OTT service providers have teamed with big production houses to create original content for their viewers. For example, Amazon Prime Video has announced 18 original shows for the Indian audience, which will debut in Q2, 2017. However, Viacom 18 has launched its digital platform Voot, which already boasts of 15 million active monthly viewers. Hence, original content is going to be a key driver of OTT growth trend India.

“Today, viewers are less care about the brands/channels they view, but they value more the quality of a content. They are bored of traditional cable TV setups, which are expensive, and provide them stereotypical contents. Now, the trends are changing with the advent of OTT. The new-age OTT service providers like Netflix, Vuclip, and Hotstar have started approaching viewers with unique content. In my opinion, the trend will continue for the next few years”,  – Mohammad Nissar, Director – Technical at RGB Broadcasting.

“OTT has become highly relevant in the emerging markets of Asia, and in particularly India, where the growth of digital content distribution has leapfrogged traditional media distribution,” says Tomer Azenkot, Vice President of Asia at Brightcove. “Not only services seen as a companion or value-add to the provider’s core business, such services have reached a point where the scalability, distribution across devices and platforms is critical, and forming significant content partnerships are key to remaining viable.”
The future of VOD or OTT is very bright in India. Companies providing OTT services are betting on the above trends, and business prospects offered by them. Although the industry is flooded with various regional and global brand players, still India’s OTT subscribers are expected to grow to 105 million by 2020, according to a report by Media Partner Asia.