Indian OTT audience grows only by 13.5 % in 2023

According to the latest Ormax Media Report, the Indian OTT audience currently stands at 48.11 crore people which means a 34 % penetration in the country. As compared to the peak growth shown in 2021 to 2022, 2023 has seen a marked reduction. The top three cities in the country in terms of subscriptions were found to be Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru.

Speaking about the significance of the report, Keerat Grewal, Head of Business Development (Streaming, TV and Brands), Ormax Media, said, “The latest edition of our annual report reveals that after the upsurge in the Indian OTT market during the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021, the growth has settled down at more moderate levels. The Indian OTT audience base grew 20 % from 2021 to 2022, but has grown only 13.5 % over the last one year, highlighting that the category is now past the peak growth phase it witnessed in the two preceding years.”

The report also reveals that there are currently 101.8 million active paid (B2C) OTT subscriptions in India, across 36.4 Million SVOD (B2C) audiences, i.e. an average of 2.8 subscriptions per paying audience member. B2C subscriptions in the report refer to subscribers who have taken a membership directly with the OTT platform, in contrast with B2B subscriptions, which are via telecom packs offered by various operators. Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru are the top 3 cities on paid subscriptions, with more than 6 million active paid subscriptions each.

Elaborating on the findings, Grewal said, “The extensive data in this report can help OTT platforms and associated agencies take more informed strategic decisions in areas like pay vs. free strategy, TG and market selection, content and communication strategy, revenue planning, etc. Ormax Media continues to stay committed to the idea of helping the Indian media and entertainment industry use data and analytics towards building more profitable and consumer-centric businesses.”

In recent months, there have been debates about whether the OTT audience was stagnating and this new report seems to reinforce that thought. A Media Partners report recently revealed that though India spent 6.1 trillion minutes watching online content between January 2022 and March 2023, 88 % of that was spent watching free YouTube content. The Daily Guardian