MxMIndia

Tag: Kanchan Samtani

  • Report also says advertising sees a cautious recovery after a dip. 2021 will see industry investing in creating greater advertiser value

    Digital video share @ 15%, 2 years ahead of forecasts: BCG-CII

     

    Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) have unveiled a report, ‘Lights, Camera, Action…and the Show Goes On’. The report seeks to evaluate the impact of 2020 on the Media and Entertainment industry and highlights key imperatives for increasing the industry’s resilience in the face of adversity. Said K Madhavan, Chairman, CII National Committee on Media & Entertainment and Managing Director, Star & Disney India: “The pandemic outbreak created many unique challenges to the Media & Entertainment sector. It was commendable to see the entire industry rise to the occasion to engage and entertain millions of viewers while they were confined at home. It’s the sheer willpower and persistence showcased by the stakeholders that have helped convert adversities into opportunities.”

     

    According to the report, 2020 has seen a massive surge in TV and smartphone video viewership during the weeks of lockdown and beyond as people spent more time at home, and OTT witnessed its presence increase in Tier 2-4 cities due to the high quality, original, and local content marketed using free trials. Covid-19 has had a major impact on how we consume content, both in-home and outside and some of these will have long term implications for the industry. Added Mandeep Kohli, Partner, Boston Consulting Group India: “India continues its unique multimodal growth. TV consumption surged ~40% during lockdown due to an increase in non-prime time viewing. Smartphone video consumption is up as well, with a 50-60% increase in subscribers over last year. Going forward we expect the digital trend to intensify, OTT adoption to continue rising, and the emergence of new business models better suited to the new reality. The share of digital in advertising will also continue to grow, having reached 15% in 2020, a full 2 years before its pre-Covid forecast.”

     

    Said Kanchan Samtani, Managing Director & Partner, Boston Consulting Group India: “Recent developments such as the resumption of operations and recovery of ad campaigns has resulted in optimism in the industry” explains

     

    One of the major themes in this year’s report is the potential economic impact that the Media & Entertainment industry can create. This is especially important in the context of the ambitious GDP target of $5 trillion that has been set by the government. The report demonstrates how in economies such as South Korea, the Media & Entertainment industry form a large and growing part of GDP due to concerted efforts by stakeholders to take Korean culture global. The report also highlights opportunities in attractive parts of the value chain such as Visual Effects and Animation, and also calls out imperatives that will need to be acted upon to seize these opportunities. “Countries are developing media hubs to drive impact of M&E – Spain has setup a content city in Madrid to tap into the growing global demand for Spanish content. This gives a boost not only to the M&E industry but also to the tourism and India should aspire to do the same. Continued focus on customer value, increasing our presence in areas such as VFX and animation, and concerted investment in skilling and technology can lay the groundwork needed to help Indian M&E achieve greater heights,” said Samtani.

     

     

  • The Over-the-Top (OTT) content market in India is at an inflection point in India, underscores a Boston Consulting Group report

    $5 billion opportunity calling

     

    By A Correspondent

     

    Over-the-top (OTT) content market in India is at an inflection point in India, as per the latest report by The Boston Consulting Group titled ‘Entertainment Goes Online’.

     

    The report pegs the Indian OTT market to reach $5bn in size by 2023. This growth is being driven by rising affluence, increase in penetration of data into rural markets and adoption across demographic segments including women and older generations.

    The ‘Entertainment Goes Online’ report is based on a consumer survey that seeks to understand consumers’ motivations in adopting OTT content over other conventional modes of content delivery. Survey results showed that there is a room for many types of OTT models such as SVOD (subscription-based platforms), AVOD (advertising-based platforms) and TVOD (transaction-based platforms) to succeed in the market.

     

    Said Kanchan Samtani, Partner & Director, The Boston Consulting Group: “Majority of India has a single TV per household. Affordable data has created an alternate medium where consumers, for the first time, can tap into content basis individual preference at a time and space convenient for them. Whilst the current market operates with a largely advertising paid content paradigm, consumers are not averse to paying for convenient content access that OTT unlocks.” Affluence and wide variety of content being developed for OTT market including diversity in genres and language gives OTT market a favorable edge over it traditional counterparts.

     

    The study identified three archetypes of customers in the Indian market, 1) traditionalists – who primarily consume on other than OTT platforms, 2) OTT Experimenter – who has significant consumption on both conventional and OTT platforms 3) Early Adopter – whose primary consumption occurs on OTT platforms. While early adopters are still a more urban phenomenon, going forward it will be more equally distributed.

     

    As many as 48% of India’s internet users (~650 million by 2023) are expected to be from rural areas. With development of regional content by various players, the rural market is poised to become a significantly large opportunity for players. OTT is riding the wave of increased data consumption and internet access in rural India, has opened a new distribution channel that is viable for regional and niche content.

    Indian content including music, Bollywood content and cricket have large following in the Indian diaspora also. OTT Players with Indian content have potential to tap into this market too. “While the NRI content market is huge and demonstrates willingness to pay, it is not only dominated by cricket – Bollywood music and films are very significant. With their large content libraries, Indian OTT players are sitting on a metaphorical gold mine to serve this increasingly important customer base”, said Gaurav Jindal, Principal, The Boston Consulting Group.

     

    “One of the key insights of our consumer work was that, while OTTs rely on top-notch hero content to attract consumers to the platform, the stickiness of these consumers is not very high unless accompanied by ways in which they engage more deeply with the platform and is associated with strong marketing efforts,” added  Samtani when discussing the subscriber acquisition and retention strategy of various OTT platforms.

     

    While Indian OTT players have taken many steps to capture the market, there is a lot that needs to be done before, Indian OTT market achieves the same penetration and maturity as its western counterparts.

     

    The report mentions Top 6 priority focus areas to drive the agenda for OTT players which can be read here.