Mumbai: Ormax Media has released the largest audience research study to size the OTT universe in India, titled The Ormax OTT Audience Sizing Report 2022. The research, based on a sample size of 13,500 across urban and rural India, was conducted from July to September 2022.

Ormax Media released select findings of the report, which reveal that the Indian OTT audience universe is currently at 423.8 million (or 42.38 crore) people. This translated into a penetration of 30 per cent, which means that three out of 10 Indians watched online videos at least once in the last month. The report breaks this universe down by gender, age, NCCS, pop strata, states, and cities.

Speaking about the need for the report, Ormax Media founder & CEO Shailesh Kapoor said, "India’s OTT audience universe has grown rapidly since 2018, with a boost during the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021. Now that we are in a more settled post-pandemic period, this annual report is an important reckoner for the OTT industry to understand how their audience base is growing and where this growth is coming from. Unlike other reports that rely on desk research, this report is based on primary audience research across India."

The report also reveals that there are currently 119 million active paid OTT subscriptions in India, across 49 million paying (SVoD) audiences, i.e., an average of 2.4 subscriptions per paying audience member. 65 per cent of these paid subscriptions are from male audiences. The top six metros contribute only 10 per cent to India’s OTT universe but 33 per cent to total paid subscriptions in India. Mumbai, Delhi, and Bengaluru are the top three, with more than 8.5 million active paid subscriptions each.

Speaking about the findings, Kapoor said, "A large share of the 20 per cent growth in audience base has come from rural India and small towns. The metropolises have reached saturation levels, with more than 79 per cent OTT penetration. Platforms will have to rely on smaller markets for the next phase of growth. From an SVoD perspective, the most significant finding has been that the average number of subscriptions has remained static at 2.4 per paying user. This data point holds immense strategic value, as it suggests that subscription growth will come from more people paying for subscriptions than the same people paying for more subscriptions".

The full report is available by subscription for streaming platforms, production companies, media agencies, and other companies associated with the OTT category in India.