Digital subscriptions grew by 49%, most OTT viewers in 15-34 age group
Released in association with Ahmedabad-based startup Communication Crafts, the report that mapped the post-pandemic consumption found that content consumption on OTT platforms was the highest by men, especially in the age group of 15-24.
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While the traditional media verticals reported a negative growth over the previous year, digital subscriptions grew by 49 per cent and online gaming grew by 18 per cent over the last year. In addition, 29 million subscribers paid for 53 million OTT video subscriptions, the report stated.Consumption of contents across OTT platforms in 2020-21 was the highest among viewers aged 15-34, revealed the fourth edition of the Indian Over-the-Top (OTT) Platforms Report 2021 (postpandemic consumption), published by MICA Ahmedabad.
Released in association with Ahmedabad-based startup Communication Crafts, the report that mapped the post-pandemic consumption found that content consumption on OTT platforms was the highest by men, especially in the age group of 15-24.
While the traditional media verticals reported a negative growth over the previous year, digital subscriptions grew by 49 per cent and online gaming grew by 18 per cent over the last year. In addition, 29 million subscribers paid for 53 million OTT video subscriptions, the report stated.
The report, which analyzed data shared by Comscore, an American media measurement and analytics company, prepared by MICA’s Centre for Media and Entertainment Studies (CMES), captures trends between April 2020 and March 2021 across 53 OTT platforms such as video, music, gaming, and news.
It also predicts that India is marching towards the milestone of 1 billion internet users quickly. The report also mentioned that over 450 million Indian entertainment consumers spent 4.6 hours per day on their smartphones in the lockdown year.
Dr Shailendra Raj Mehta, President and Director, MICA, said, “The year 2020-21 was particularly significant, with the pandemic forcing consumers to stay homebound. This brought about a paradigm shift in consumption patterns. The fourth Over-The-Top (OTT) Platforms Report, developed by MICA, encompasses in-depth research and analysis from an Indian perspective.”
Among online gaming, reflecting the shift from 65 million daily active users of PubG in March 2020, the number went down by more than half, by December 2020, due to the ban.
“Ludo King is most frequented by men and women between 18 and 34, who make up 70 per cent of the total visitor traffic. Coin Master was installed 30.7 million times in India in 2020-21, and the key consumers of Coin Master are men above the age of 25 years,” the report states.
Dr Darshin Ashwin Trivedi, Editor, MICA Indian OTT Platforms Report and Adjunct Faculty at MICA, said, “Indian OTT consumers are primarily young, within 15-34. Gaming, especially e-sports, short-form video content, news app consumption, music platforms consumption, podcasts, video platforms consumption, crowdsourced food content creation, and education platforms content creation and consumption were some of the highlights of the previous year.”
Prof. Santosh Patra, Head, Centre for Media and Entertainment Studies (CMES) at MICA said, “The OTT industry is set to be worth US$15 billion by 2030. Smartphones with affordable data plans have made strong inroads across the country. This has brought the requisite infrastructure to people’s fingertips across the country and created a massive opportunity. The next wave of growth in the OTT landscape, thus, will be propelled by the tier 2, 3 and 4 cities and the Indian regional languages-speaking population.” Among music consumption, men outnumber women. Amazon Prime Music was accessed three times more by men above the age of 35 years than women above 35 years. Similarly, most men between the ages of 25 and 34 years frequent the app, while women of that age group are five times fewer.
For Spotify, the platform has 1.5 times more male users than females. However, the maximum number of users falls in 15-24 years, where male users are double the female users.
The report also notes a repeating trend from previous years when it came to watching movies or web shows on OTT platforms. Despite the nature of the content offered by various platforms, male viewers dominated the spaces except for Voot and Zee5.
For Netflix, the male viewers are 17.36 per cent more than the female viewers, and the maximum number of viewers falls in the age group of 15-24 years. Whereas for Disney+ Hotstar, the audience viewing falls in the age bracket of 6 to 34 in both genders. However, male viewers outnumber female viewers by 1.6 times. Chennai tops entertainment consumption with a 73 per cent viewership of Disney+ Hotstar.
For Sony LIV, the male audience outnumbers the female viewers by 1.2 times, whereas for Amazon Prime, the male category occupies the most significant chunk. For Voot, the female audience outnumbers the male audience for this platform. Further, the age group of 35 years and above dominates social media platforms WhatsApp and Facebook.
“Male users on WhatsApp are 1.5 times higher than female users,” it states.
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