A problem of plenty: Too many OTT players boggling Indian consumers

A whopping 77 per cent consumers in India said they are overwhelmed by the number of streaming services to choose from, with a third of them saying it can take them more than 10 minutes to settle on a choice, according to Accenture’s second annual global entertainment study ‘Reinvent For Growth’. 

The small study, which surveyed 6,000 consumers globally, including more than 500 in India, found that 30% find it taking more than 10 minutes to settle on a streaming choice, up from 17% last year.  

The Indian OTT market is extremely fragmented with over 40 OTT apps across languages and content type vying for audience eyeballs and wallets.  Disney+ Hotstar leads the pack with a whopping 60.3 million subscribers in Asia – a large majority of it comes from India, making it the largest streamer by user base in the country, way ahead of rivals Amazon Prime Video (approximately 20 million) and Netflix (approximately 6 million). Along with ZEE5 and SonyLIV – from the stables of broadcasting giants Sony Pictures Networks India (SPNI) and Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. (ZEEL) which are in the midst of a merger, these are the top 5 streaming services in India. 

What’s more? 41 per cent of consumers in India unsubscribed from at least one of the top five streaming video-on-demand services in the last 12 months, and 42% said that they plan to cut one or more in the next 12 months. 

Each OTT paying audience member in India has 2.4 subscriptions on an average, according to Ormax OTT Audience Sizing Report 2022. The consultancy firm estimates that India has 424 million OTT users. But there 119 million active paid OTT subscriptions across 49 million paying (SVOD) audiences.  

On the other hand, India has an approximate 150 million households with TVs, which translates to 600 million TV viewers.  

The study also showed that 72 per cent consumers in India would pay for an all-in-one platform for their entertainment services. In addition, five in six (83 per cent) want the ability to share their streaming profiles across platforms to allow for better personalization of content. 

This increasing demand for simplicity in an over-crowded segment comes as a challenge to the OTT players which are already grappling with heavy content costs and low ARPUs in price-sensitive India. A lot of OTT platforms were investing heavily in content because of high valuations and a good flow of money. But the already competitive Indian streaming space is at a challenging juncture as the money flow has slowed down now globally amid headwinds.   

Saurabh Kumar Sahu, managing director and lead for Communications, Media and Technology industry group, Accenture in India said, “With growing focus on revenue over content and rising customer dissatisfaction with their media experiences, the streaming industry is at a critical stage of evolution. To stay relevant and profitable in an increasingly competitive media landscape, streaming service providers need to reimagine the entertainment ecosystem keeping in mind consumer needs for simplicity, customization and affordability.” 

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