The latest edition of Ormax Media’s streaming audience research reveals significant growth in India‘s streaming landscape, albeit driven entirely by ad-supported viewership.

The Ormax OTT Audience Report: 2024 provides insights into the evolving digital content consumption patterns across the country. Based on a sample size of 12,000 respondents from urban and rural India, the study estimates the current OTT (streaming) audience universe at 547 million users, representing a penetration of 38% (up from 34% in 2023).

This marks a 14% increase from 2023’s 481 million figure and is “entirely driven” by the growth in the ad-supported video-on-demand (AVOD) segment, which saw a 21% rise, the report states. In contrast, the subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) segment experienced a 2% numerical decline.

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The report also indicates that active paid streaming subscriptions in India remain relatively unchanged at 99.6 million. Notably, the average number of platforms subscribed to per paying audience member has decreased from 2.8 to 2.5 in 2024.

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Smartphones continue to dominate as the preferred device for streaming content consumption, with 97% of the Indian audience using them and 81% exclusively watching on smartphones. The connected TV audience base is estimated at 69.7 million.

Keerat Grewal, head of business development at Ormax Media, said: “While the overall expansion rate of the OTT universe has stably been around the 13%-mark post-pandemic, this year’s report highlights the significant role of the AVOD segment in expanding the universe. 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 report’s findings appear to bear out what Ormax chief Shailesh Kapoor had told Variety during his mid-year assessment of the complex Indian streaming market. Cost remains a hurdle, Kapoor had said. “Indians are not used to paying for content. In general, TV has been very low cost in India for years now. And in streaming, there are two costs, the data cost, and then there is a subscription cost. So, it is a double cost structure. Many Indians do not fully understand why they should be paying for content when so much content is available for free on TV and on YouTube,” Kapoor had said.

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