While the whole world was in the current downturn induced by the CoVID-19 Pandemic, Popular Online Streaming services onboarded about more than 15.8 Million Paid Subscribers as their latest audience in the first quarter of 2020 between the snafu of lockdown and pandemic, online Movies, and Over the top(OTT) Platform/services have emerged on the top in the absence of the mobility to Cinema halls or Offline Movies for entertainment.
Corona Pandemic drastically affected everyone, especially the spending and consumption patterns of people. During this situation, what can be better than watching online films?
Change in Consumption Pattern
Though the Pandemic’s impact has been similarly devastating across the industries if not worse, though, there is a particular sector that had not anticipated such an enforced change of offline to online engagement. The media and Entertainment Sector was pre-dominantly heavily reliant on offline interaction, mostly on-ground events. CoVID-19 would have obliterated the entire industry if not have been for the online movies and OTT Platforms. KPMG stated that there had been a humongous increase in the Online Movies/Media Consumption in the last few months despite the revenue by advertisements being an issue. These ads are mostly coming from sectors already being maimed by the Pandemic like FMCG, Auto, E-commerce, etc.
With the improvements in the quality of the content homebound customers/Consumers are actively renewing their subscriptions.
A few reports have also suggested that the current lockdown may increase the number of content people consume by 60%.
The impetus to the Growth
Reports have suggested that about 76.5 million people are older than 15 years of age and watch Online Movies/OTT Platforms at least two hours a week in India.
The primary reason for this surge is the penetration of smartphones in India, which are the primary device for viewing online movies/content, and the number is highly likely to touch 859 million by 2022
If we roll back the time to 2012, we had about only Nine OTT Platforms or online movies platform within the next seven years; the number increased to Thirty-Five. Movies pre-dominantly distributed and viewed via offline theatres are moving and finding their way to newer online movies platform for streaming. One-third of 1.2 Billion Indians are now in possession of smartphones capable of streaming online videos owing to cheaper internet availability. The average monthly internet data consumed tripled to 3.9Gb three years back and is close to being quadrupled to 18Gb in the next two years.
Trends
Online movie streaming platforms and OTT Platforms are offering extended free trial subscriptions to ease out the pain caused by Corona Pandemic. The overall digital subscription revenue is highly likely to see an upswing with its ability to be hooked to the consumer by creating a habit formation; the shift from Mobile screen to larger TV Screen is imminent owing to wifi and broadband availability.
These freebies and targeted approach could impend a new normal and accelerate the growth in consumption of digital content and the revenue associated with it within the next few months and will likely stay the same for the foreseeable future.
