India Loves To Watch Videos: Online Streaming Market To Reach More Than Rs 35,000 Crore By 2023, Says BCG Report  

The fast-growing over-the-top (OTT) video streaming market in India will touch the $5 billion mark by 2023, according to a Boston Consulting Group (BCG) study, Livemint has reported.

The BCG conducted a consumer survey the led to the report ‘Entertainment Goes Online’. The goal of the survey was to understand users’ motivation in preferring OTT content over other traditional modes of content delivery.

The report notices the expansion of India’s online video base. Rising affluence, increase in data penetration in rural areas and rising usage by women and older generations is driving the expansion of the video base, BCG said in the report.

According to the report, the market is currently at the value of 500 million dollors and expected to grow to 5 billion dollars by 2023. It adds 82 per cent of the users in India’s market use advertising-led video-on-demand (AVoD) over 18 per cent who pay for content in subscription-led video-on-demand platform services.

The report estimates in 2023, around 4-5 crore users will pay for subscription-led video-on-demand (SVoD) services, compared to which, AVoD platform will engage an audience of 60 crore. The report adds SVoD will grow if there is a development of strong content pieces and the evolution of paying habits by users.

Indian users will follow the habit of users in developed markets by using two or three OTT apps. The launch of Reliance Jio, in September 2016, in India, has paved the way for a new era of media consumption on mobile phones.

The report also adds the importance of rural areas for the growth of the market. By 2023, around 65 crore or 48 per cent of India’s Internet users are estimated to come from rural areas, and the rural internet penetration could grow to as much as 35 per cent, leading to the development of regional content.