Hotstar leads online video consumption in India in Jan-June
IN INDIA, THE NUMBER OF VIDEOCAPABLE DEVICES AND CONNECTIONS ARE EXPECTED TO GROW 2.2FOLD BETWEEN 2016 AND 2021, ACCORDING TO FICCIKPMG STUDY
Broadcaster Star India’s video streaming app Hotstar held on to its No.1 spot in terms of monthly active usage in the first half of this year, followed by JioTV and JioCinema from Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd, data from app analytics firm App Annie Inc. showed.
Voot and Amazon Prime took up the fourth and fifth positions. All five video streaming apps have retained the positions they held in the last six months of 2016. The first change comes at the sixth position — Sony Liv from Sony Pictures Networks Ltd has climbed from rank seven to six. Data from Android phones were collected for this ranking.
Others in top 10 are TVF Play from popular content creator The Viral Fever, Tata Sky Mobile, Netflix and OZee.
Voot from Viacom18 Digital Ventures has access to Viacom18 Media Pvt Ltd’s content library, including shows on its flagship entertainment channel Colors. It has added originals on the platform including a quirky advertising agency drama, Untag and It’s not that simple, a drama series.
Data indicates local content is key to achieving both scale and volumes on the internet in India.
The Hotstar app has crossed 300 million downloads in India. “Over the last two years, we have built a service that has both an intuitive user experience as well as a compelling content portfolio. Video streamers now see Hotstar as the default destination for the categories we play in today: TV shows, movies and sports. We see diversity in usage. Different streaming audiences are gravitating towards different parts of the Hotstar proposition,” said Ajit Mohan, CEO at Hotstar.
In the last one year, the OTT (over the top) Video on Demand (VoD) services have seen an upsurge. 2016 saw the entry of global OTT video leaders such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, as well as the launch of broadcast network backed platforms, such as Voot (Viacom 18) and OZee (Zee TV). Others— Hotstar and Sony Liv — consolidated their offerings by launching premium services and a dedicated kids channel, respectively. Telcos, too, have joined the race. Both Jio and Airtel have streaming apps.
In India, the number of videocapable devices and connections are expected to grow 2.2-fold between 2016 and 2021, reaching 800 million in number according to the Ficci-KPMG Media and Entertainment Industry Report 2017. Live video streaming continues to gain traction. Currently, the number of OTT players in India is about 30.