India’s over-the-top (OTT) content market is at an inflection point, says a report by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG). According to the management consulting firm, this market is expected to reach $5 billion in size by 2023. Major factors driving the growth is the rising affluence of consumers, increasing penetration of data use in rural markets and widespread adoption across demographics, including women and older generations. The opportunities afforded by the global OTT market is huge and has been pegged approximately at $76 billion for 2018. United States and Canada have dominated in market size so far due to better connectivity allowing for wider circulation of OTT apps.
Over-the-top (OTT) applications like Hotstar, Voot, NetFlix, Youtube and Amazon Prime provide a product over the internet, bypassing traditional distribution.BCG’s report is based on a first-of-its-kind consumer survey that sought to understand the motivations driving adoption of OTT content over conventional modes of content delivery. Further, the survey shows that there is room for many types of OTT models like subscription-based (SVOD), advertising-based (AVOD) and transaction-based platforms (TVOD) to succeed.
“The majority of India has a single TV per household. Affordable data has created an alternate medium where consumers, for the first time, can tap into content basis individual preference at a time and space convenient for them. The current market operates with a large advertising paid content paradigm, consumers are not averse to paying for convenient content access that OTT unlocks,” said Kanchan Samtani, Partner and Director, The Boston Consulting Group.
BCG feels that early adopters are urban, but going forward the reach of data and mobile phones will result in equal distribution. About 48 per cent of India’s internet users, or 650 million people, are expected to be from rural areas by 2023.
With the development of regional content by various players, the rural market is poised to offer significant opportunities. Indian content including music, Bollywood content and cricket have a large following in the Indian diaspora too, with OTT players with such content in a prime position to tap into this market too.