Financial Upswing of Over-The-Top Media-Service In India – TheAge of COVID-19 -Moumita Sen ( M.Com, Visiting Faculty Member, Techno India School of ManagementStudies, kolkata)

The COVID-19 outbreak globally and nationwide lockdown have had an emerging impact on almost every industry of an economy. Besides sabotaging the economic activity and lowering consumption the pandemic has upswing lifestyle and behavioral changes in people. The way people live, eat, play, work and entertain their selves has been altered since last few months.  

 Among every sectors related to public life style. Media & Entertainment (M&E) industry has been seen to altering its platforms and shifting their consumption patterns to hold their consumer. Moreover it better to they have managed to boost consumer number with Over-the-top-media Services during this pandemic situation. People tend to shift from traditional Media towards online streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney + Hotstar, Voot, Eros Now etc

                                         

Future Prediction for OTT Media Service before pandemic occurred

According to KPMG Media and Entertainment Report 2018, the Indian OTT market is expected to grow 45 percent to reach ₹138 billion by the end of fiscal 2023-"Video OTT revenue in India expected to reach Rs 13,800 crore by FY 2023 – Exchange4media".-Indian Advertising Media & Marketing News – exchange4media..

According to a report by Ernst & Young, the number of OTT users in the country will reach 500 million by 2020, making India the second–biggest market after the US. "The rise and rise of India's online streaming services". The Week.

OTT media service during pandemic

“There has been a perceptible increase in media consumption during the last few weeks as people have remained homebound,” KPMG states in a study.

But the sector might have faced financial challenges because the sector derive a huge sum of money from the advertising of FMCG, Financial Services, Automobile Sector, Banking , Insurance, Ecommerce and Real- Estate sectors, which are seeming to have downturn impact of the pandemic.

Despite of such financial obligations OTT platforms are earning from subscription revenues from consumers for quality content provided by the sector while at home. According to market research firm techARC, India had 502.2 million smartphone users about 77% of Indians as of December 2019, which clearly describe the uprising subscription of OTT Media Services in India during lockdown.

There has been rise in OTT consumption in duration across demographics and devices” as people opting for stay-at-home entertainment options. YouTube, which already enjoys widespread popularity in India, has seen a 20.5 percent surge in subscribers in the country. It has achieved over 300 billion views in the first quarter of 2020, growing 13 percent since the fourth quarter of 2019, according to a joint study by Mindshare India and Vidooly (video analytics platform).

Amazon today reported earnings for its first fiscal quarter of 2020, including revenue of $75.5 billion, net income of $2.5 billion in 1st quarter, 2020. Video streaming giant Netflix has added 15.8 million subscribers in the first quarter of 2020 which is a growth of 22per cent (year-over-year), registering quarterly revenue of $5.77 billion. Netflix now has over 182 million subscribers worldwide.

                                       

Girish Menon, Partner and Leader - M&E, KPMG in India, says,

“There could be a shifting of priorities as we progress to a new normal; the balance between work and family, wealth and well being might be re-evaluated with leisure — of which media and entertainment is a large part — playing a greater role in our lives.”

As Out-of-home consumption of entertainment like going to movie, events are witnessing a dramatic pause due to social distancing norms in national and global wide, people picked up the at-home entertainment medium like OTT Media Services as the new normal progression and this behavarial change will have a positive impact on the M&E sector even after the recovery of such COVID-19 situation