Consumption on streaming apps rises 140% in 2019; YouTube leads, Prime 2nd

YouTube recorded 274 million total unique viewers in March 2019, occupying a 93.4% reach

The time spent on video streaming apps globally went up 140 per cent in 2019 over 2018 in India, Australia, Indonesia, South Korea and Thailand, says the second edition of the Indian Over-the-Top (OTT) Platforms Report 2019 from MICA, the media and communications business school here (earlier known as Mudra Institute of Communications).

OTT or Over-The-Top is the media service offered directly to viewers over the internet, bypassing cable, broadcast or satellite television platforms.

Issued in association with Communications Crafts, a start-up based here, it highlights that Indians prefer regional content on OTT platforms. The report analysed data shared by Comscore, an American media measurement and analytics company. It further found that for India, the highest consumed platform is YouTube. Followed by Amazon Prime and three Indian platforms — HotStar, JioCinema and Voot.

“Regional is the new battle zone. Following the availability of internet through mobile phones at a massive scale and low rates, the internet dark zones, especially semi-urban and rural areas, have got access to content. Many users are first-generation OTT content consumers. Since these are non-urban areas which are supposed to have an inflow of mainstream content, the new consumers have been attracted to regional content. The newer players in regional content include Hoichoi, Ullu and MXPlayer, to name a few,” the report states. For instance, 60 per cent of the watch time on YouTube happens outside the six metro areas. Hoichoi (Bengali content) had 85 per cent growth in traffic from 76,000 total unique visitors in March 2018 to 140,000 in March 2019.

A total of two million minutes were consumed in March, averaging 6.4 minutes per visitor. And, YouTube recorded 274 million total unique viewers in March 2019, occupying 93.4 per cent reach. Total unique viewership for Netflix rose 187 per cent, their digital population increasing from 5,396 in March 2018 to 15,501 in March 2019.

ZEE5 saw 164 per cent change in unique visitors, from 9.9 mn in March 2018 to 26.2 mn in March 2019, with audiences crossing the 20-million mark in October 2018. A little over 90 per cent og visitors accessed the platform on mobile phones, with mobile app usage rising exponentially during the one-year period, from 26 per cent of the viewership in March 2018 to 73 per cent by March 2019.