12 Dec 2019
India’s Media and Entertainment (M&E) industry is one of the country’s champion sectors as declared by the Government of India. It has many achievements it can be proud of. One of these is its far-reaching impact not only by way of influencing people, but also employment: it employs over 5 million people, both directly and indirectly.
The country continues its unique multi-modal growth trajectory with video driving it for the last 2-3 years. With traditional media still growing steadily, digital media has taken the lead and is the reason that the sector has, as a whole, recorded an overall growth of 16% CAGR over the last two years.
With over a trillion touchpoints (when mobile screens are included), India has become the country with the second largest base of smartphones in the world, setting up a massive platform for digital video consumption. The rapid growth of broadband, mobile technology and digital media are bringing about growth in this specific sector, thereby contributing significantly to the country’s GDP.
According to the 2019 CII-BCG Big Picture Summit Report; ‘The Trillion (and growing) Touchpoint Story’, while TV has grown organically, digital video consumption has almost doubled in the last two years. Furthermore, Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain are creating new opportunities for growth for the M&E Sector.
In November 2019, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) organised the 8th edition of the Big Picture Summit in New Delhi.
The Summit brought together stakeholders from the M&E industry and policy makers to deliberate upon issues and find ways to expedite work towards a converging ecosystem. Both national and international experts for the M&E sector, the government along with academia and civil society, took advantage of this platform and discussed new ways to boost the growth of this sector.
Favourable demographics, an increase in the number of smartphones and ubiquitous low-cost internet services have created the perfect market for demand to increase in India. This in turn, allows customers to sample different Subscription-based Video on Demand (SVODs) like Netflix and Amazon Prime, thereby setting a huge base for digital video consumption. The exponential growth of suppliers investing in providing a customer-centric experience has set the benchmark for a truly enriching experience. This is evident in the increase in the number of sessions and time per session people invest in watching SVODs. Across the board, digital video consumption has increased from 11 to 24 minutes per day in the last two years driven by the 10-15% increase in number of sessions and a 15-25% increase in average time per session.
In order to fuel the growth of this sector, the industry has also contributed by bringing in accessible pricing, partnerships, large breadth of relevant content and increased awareness. The continuous investment in a wide range of content is increasingly data driven with a focus on micro genres. Growth is coming from regional language markets. All indicators suggest that this growth will continue, and the trillion touchpoints will only increase going forward. Riding on the growing digital consumption via smartphones along with ultra-cheap data plans, the M&E industry in India is likely to reach INR 3.07 lakh crore by 2024.
The coming years will be very important for the industry as it aims to transform the trillion touchpoints into a more sustainable proposition. With advertising dollars growing, the future is truly promising for the industry.