Only 100 million of India's 547 million OTT users are paying subscribers: Ormax report

Media consulting firm Ormax Media has released the latest edition of its research to size the OTT universe in India, titled ‘The Ormax OTT audience report 2024’. It pegs the current Indian OTT audience universe at 547.3 million (or 54.73 crore), which translates to a penetration of 38.4%.

The 13.8% growth in this consumer base over 2023 is entirely driven by the advertising video on demand (AVOD) audience, which grew by 21%, while the subscription video on demand (SVOD) segment witnessed a degrowth of 2%.

Speaking about these findings, Keerat Grewal, head of business development (streaming, TV and brands) at Ormax Media, said that while the overall expansion rate of the OTT landscape has stably been around the 13%-mark post-pandemic, this year’s report highlights the significant role of AVOD segment in expanding the domain.

“The growth is driven by AVOD audiences, with most of the new entrants into the category watching video content only on YouTube and social media. The stagnation in SVOD audience size is also reflective of the trend whereby free content is driving OTT growth in small town and rural India,” she added. 

The report defines an OTT audience who watched at least one online video (free or paid) in the last one month. Based on a sample size of 12,000 across urban and rural India, the research was conducted in June and July of 2024 and breaks down this sector by gender, age, NCCS, pop strata, states, and cities. The scope of this year’s report was also expanded to provide an insight into devices of consumption, which will help in defining distribution strategy.

India has 99.6 million of active paid (B2C) OTT subscriptions, a number very similar to last year. The average number of platforms subscribed to per paying audience member has come down from 2.8 to 2.5 in 2024, highlighting the waning need among audiences to subscribe to too many platforms.

This year’s report also elaborates on various devices used by the OTT audience in India to watch online video content. Smartphone emerges as the most preferred device to watch online video content with 97% of Indian OTT audience using it, and a sizeable 81% audience watching OTT content only on their smartphone. The connected TV audience base is estimated at 69.7 million.