SVOD consumption sees surge of 82% in Urban India in last one year: Kantar

Online video consumption is driving Internet adoption in small town. Users have grown significantly in smaller towns (40%) and online video is working as a stepping-stone for the new internet users. This was revealed in Kantar’s ICUBE report. The annual tracking study, considered to be the currency for digital adoption in the country, gauges the changing digital ecosystem in India, measuring Internet usage trends by demographic, activity and device segments, besides providing data and insights on Online Video Consumption.

The report further states that at 18 per cent, Social Media video consumption records a slower growth rate compared to AVOD and SVOD. However, close to about 85 per cent of online video consumers consume social media videos.

‘Online video’ watching is no longer a young people phenomenon. The growth of online video users in urban India is highest among 45 years and above age group.

Speaking about Online Video Consumption, Biswapriya Bhattacharjee, Executive Vice President, Insights Division, Kantar, said, “The one line verdict on Digital entertainment for the year is that of uninterrupted growth. There is good news, for both platforms and marketers. The digital medium is way younger than its offline counter parts, but we already see a very discerning audience base. The concept of specialisation is already in place and the platform allows the content creators to bring out their creative best on this platform.”

Key findings:

Total online video users count rose to 294 million in December 2019.
Online video usership in urban India has grown by 25% over the last one year, compared to 11% active Internet user's growth.
Not only the number of people watching videos has witnessed a surge, but they are doing it on a more frequent basis. 65% of online video watchers watch video online daily.
The proportion of 45 and above years age group people watching online video is higher among smaller cities than metros and large cities.
The proportion of female online video viewers is higher than males among less than 15 years old age group.
On-demand video content watchers are on the rise in Urban India. Affordable internet and a wide range of curated content, the on-demand video has seen significant growth over the last one year.
Music (47%), Movies (54%) are the two most-watched online video content in Urban India.
While SVOD content has witnessed a significant surge over the last one year with users growing to the tune of 82% over the last one year. AVOD has also marked growth in users (29%).
The growth of Social media video users has been slower compared to AVOD or SVOD growth rate. There is an increase in the number of social media video viewers by 18%. The proportion of video users accessing social media video has dropped over the last one year
The growth of SVOD is driven by smaller towns (less than 5 lakh population). SVOD users have witnessed a significant demographic change over the last one year. 37% of SVOD users now belongs to small towns compared to 10% of 2018.
SVOD users are more mature as the majority of them are already using both social media and AVOD content. 99% of the SVOD users watch either AVOD or Social media videos.
YouTube dominates on-demand video usage across genre, from music videos to news, except live sports- predominantly dominated by Hot star
While SVOD has witnessed a huge surge in the last one year, AVOD will continue to be the most-watched video platform for foreseeable future due to its short format videos in comparison to long format videos of SVOD.
People watch AVOD content more frequently than SVOD content. But video watched on AVOD platforms is shorter than that of SVOD content. The majority of the AVOD content has a duration of fewer than 10 minutes whereas, the majority of the SVOD content has a duration of 15 minutes to up to one hour.

ICUBE is an annual syndicated study of Kantar to measure the reach and frequency of Internet usership in India. Launched in 1998, the study is in its 22nd year. ICUBE 2019 covered about 75,000 respondents across 390 cities and urban locations and about 1m300+ villages. The study represents all states and Union Territories of India barring Lakshadweep. The data collection for the study was conducted between May and August 2019.