What is driving consumption on Netflix and other OTT platforms?

Video streaming platforms have been seeing significant growth after the pandemic. As offline entertainment shut down, there has been a complete shift to online streaming. With users not willing to step out of their houses, production houses of mainstream movies and OTT platforms started releasing new content online along with producing more originals as demand kept increasing.

Nikhil Dalal and Ujjwal Chaudhury of Redseer deep dive into OTT, one of the hot sectors at the moment, and share some latest trends that have emerged in the space and what has worked for this industry.

As per the RedSeer report, the number of unique paid users has gone up by 35% in February 2021 to 31 million, from 23 million in April 2020. Subscription revenues were up 42% in February 2021 at $68 million, compared to $49 million in April 2020.

Dalal and Chaudhury attribute the increase in paid users to new launches in video – the recent times have seen the launch of Disney+ Hotstar, Voot Select and multiple regional SVoD platforms like HoiChoi, SunNXT. Besides, there has also been rise in the number of smart TV users.

With no fresh content on TV for several weeks last year due to shootings being prohibited, more and more users shifted to online and consumed content on Digital. This also has led to growth in the number OTT subscribers.

Higher users opting for annual packs

According to Dalal and Chaudhury, higher discounts and offers are leading to more users opting for annual packs.

Many of the post paid users opt for bundling options provided by their telecom operator as it benefits them in varying ways. Even broadband operators like JioFibre provide bundling options. For Free Prime and Netflix subscriptions. Moreover, with discounts and offers on various players, users tend to opt for annual subscription packs. While the unique paid user growth rate has been 35% in February 2021 when compared to April 2020, subscriptions increased by 8% during the same period. Importantly, subscription revenue also increased by 42%.

Bundling with Telecom

Telecom bundling plans have worked well for OTT video, increasing the number of subscriptions per year. Telecom players have been offering bundling options for their post paid and pre-paid users for OTT platforms such as Hotstar, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video and more. Jio has been offering broadband bundling offer for free Amazon Prime Video and Netflix subscriptions to its JioFibre users.

Users spent 188 billion minutes on OTT platforms in February 2021

Compared to last April 2020, there has been a drop of 6% in February 2021, where users spent 188 billion minutes monthly. The drop is mostly because engagement dropped as users started moving out with normalcy returning and their favourite TV soaps starting again. However, the good news is with more releases in the pipeline along with product improvement, the engagement is likely to increase.

Daily soaps, new releases across TV and movies drive up consumption

The Redseer research shows that out of the 188 billion minutes spent on OTT, users spent the highest that is 69 billion minutes on daily soaps followed by movies with 31 billion minutes and then originals produced by the OTT platforms. Voot dominates the daily soaps genre compared to its players while ‘Others’ together contribute 31% as well. On the other hand, Hotstar dominates movies genre with 33%.

Over the past year, consumer behaviour has largely changed as they now heavily rely on OTT platforms for new content. This will inevitably accelerate the growth trajectory of the industry.

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