Ormax Media’s 2024 OTT Report Reveals 13.8% Growth, AVOD Surge

Media consulting firm Ormax Media has released the latest edition of India’s largest audience research for sizing the OTT universe in the country, titled The Ormax OTT Audience Report: 2024. With a sample size of 12,000 across urban and rural India, the research was conducted in June and July of 2024.

According to some key findings of the report brought out by Ormax Media, the current Indian OTT audience universe stands at 547.3 million, or 54.73 crore, for a penetration of 38.4%. The 13.8% growth in the universe compared with 2023 has come entirely from the AVOD audience, which grew 21 per cent, even as the SVOD segment witnessed degrowth of 2 per cent. The report defines the OTT audience to include all consumers who viewed at least one free or paid online video in the past one month. This universe is further broken down by gender, age, NCCS, pop strata, states, and cities in the report.

While speaking about the findings of the report, Keerat Grewal, head of business development (Streaming, TV & Brands), 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 specially underlines the role of AVOD segment in expanding the universe.”. It is then powered by AVOD audiences; most of the new entrants into the category watch video content only on YouTube and social media. Another prominent trend that the stagnation in SVOD audience size reflects is that it’s free content which is driving OTT growth in small town and rural India.

It also shows that the report mentioned that India had 99.6 million active paid OTT subscriptions, not quite different from that of last year. The average number of platforms subscribed to per paying audience member decreased from 2.8 to 2.5 in 2024. This clearly shows a waning need amongst audiences to subscribe to too many platforms.

The report also elaborates at great length the various devices that the OTT audience uses to watch online video content across India. Smartphone emerges as the most preferred device when it comes to watching online video content, with 97 percent of Indian OTT audiences using it; a sizable 81 percent of the audience views OTT content only on their smartphone. The connected TV audience base is pegged at 69.7 million.

Talking about the report, Grewal said, “This year’s report gives an in-depth look into the dynamic growth and future trajectory of India’s OTT landscape, which shall help OTT platforms and agencies on growth strategy, acquisition and retention decisions, revenue planning, and content strategy.”. We have also expanded the scope of this year’s report to offer an insight into devices of consumption, which shall help in defining the distribution strategy. This report is a proof of Ormax Media’s commitment toward continuing to provide insights that help platforms, production companies, and agencies improve profitability through data and analytics.

The complete report is available to be subscribed to by streaming platforms, production houses, media agencies, and other companies associated with the OTT category in India.