India has 424 mn OTT viewers, 119 mn paid subscriptions

India currently has 423.8 million (or 42.38 crore) OTT viewers, translating into a penetration of 30%, which means three out of ten Indians watched online videos at least once in the last one month. However, there are only 119 million active paid OTT subscriptions in India, across 49 million paying (SVoD) audiences, which is an average of 2.4 subscriptions per paying audience member.

These are findings from a report by media consulting firm Ormax titled The Ormax OTT Audience Sizing Report 2022. The research, based on a sample size of 13,500 across urban and rural India, was conducted from July to September 2022.

Further, 65% of these paid subscriptions are with male audiences. The top six metros contribute only 10% to India’s OTT universe but 33% to total paid subscriptions in India. Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru, are the top three cities, with more than 8.5 million active paid subscriptions each. India’s OTT universe has grown 20% since 2021 when it stood at 353.2 million. About 19.2% of the OTT audience is watching content on SVoD platforms, but have not paid for any direct subscription themselves; 11.6% are currently a paid member of at least one streaming service or have paid directly (not via a telecom bundle) for at least one subscription themselves. About 43.5% watch videos only on free streaming platforms, including at least one platform besides YouTube and 25.8% watch videos only on YouTube and/ or social media platforms.

“A large share of the 20% growth in audience base has come from rural India and small towns. The metro cities have reached saturation levels, with more than 79% OTT penetration. Platforms will have to rely on the smaller markets for the next phase of growth,” Shailesh Kapoor, founder and CEO – Ormax Media, said in a statement. “From an SVoD perspective, the most-significant finding has been that the average number of subscriptions have remained static at 2.4 per paying user. This data point holds immense strategic value, as it suggests that subscriptions growth will come from more people paying for subscriptions, than the same people paying for more subscriptions,” Kapoor added. Livemint