The Indian OTT industry size is valued at a whopping 280 Million USD. Not only that, but this industry is also continuing to grow exponentially. The OTT music industry in India contributes to a total of 67% of the revenue generated from recorded music.
Speaking on the same, Blaise Fernandes, the CEO and President of Indian Music Industry, said “If a Despacito can become a hit in India, if K-Pop can cross geographical boundaries, then the scope for music from India is infinite. Music in regional languages is poised to dominate local and international markets driven by the reach of the audio OTT platforms,”
Studies conducted by Deloitte and IMI have contributed to a report that states that the OTT music industry in India is growing rapidly. In fact, the share of digital revenue for the music industry has grown significantly from 2013-2017 from 51% of the revenue to 78%.
Mr. Fernandes commented on this by saying “India is a music loving society. The launch of various Indian audio OTT platforms like JioSavaan, Gaana, Hungama, Wynk, and Vodafone-Idea along with international platforms like Apple Music, Amazon Music, Google Play and now the arrival of Spotify offer immense potential for the growth of the audio OTT industry, not just in India but across borders as well,”
Many big players within the music industry have leveraged this change to their advantage. Hungama Music, in particular, has seen a 37% growth since 2017 in music streaming alone. Their users have spent a total of 145 million hours streaming their favorite songs. This figure indicates a 22% growth in the time that a single user spends streaming music. Moreover, users have also downloaded more than 40 million songs in 2019. This is 29 times the songs downloaded just a year ago.
Neeraj Roy, the CEO, and Founder of Hungama Digital said “The last few years have completely altered the music streaming landscape in the country. Affordable data plans and increasing smartphone usage are fast making streaming the go-to mode of music consumption for consumers,”
Streaming music has become so mainstream that this has also contributed to the overall growth of the domestic music scene. The music industry in India generated a strong revenue of 850 million USD in 2017.
Reports by Delloite indicate that the rapid acceptance and use of smartphones in India has contributed to this boom in OTT streaming. In fact, in 2017 there were 404 million smartphone users and this number will soon grow to 829 million by 2022. By the end of 2018, India saw 150 users streaming OTT music. This also explains the growth of regional music on OTT platforms and how it is beginning to surpass mainstream music. Understanding the same, Saregaama Carvaan is now offering an app by the same name that has more than 5,000 retro Hindi songs on it.
Regional music in languages like Punjabi, Tamil, Kannada, Bhojpuri, Telugu, and Malayalam have seen a huge growth in OTT streaming. The Time Spent Streaming has also increased accordingly in North Eastern states, Bihar, UP, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu. Maharashtra has the maximum streams, followed by UP, Karnataka, Delhi, and Gujrat. These states together contributed to a total of 53% of all the streaming in 2018.
