YouTube Bullish On Growing Business Via Vernacular Content In India

Google owned video sharing platform YouTube is reportedly looking forward to grow its business in India via its vernacular content as it expects viewership to grow by 40% for the contents produced in Marathi, Tamil, Telugu and Bengali in next year.

In an interview with ET, Marc Lefkowitz, head of YouTube content creator and artist development for (Asia – Pacific Region (APAC) said that the platform records nearly 245 Mn users per month from India. He also stated that nearly 60% of the growth is recorded from the non-metro cities.

Lefkowitz said, “ We have seen a four-times growth in content coming from overall areas. A lot of growth is outside of Hindi and English”.

According to the company, at present, YouTube has nearly 2.5K creators crossing the mark of achieving 1K subscribers. Almost three creators are achieving 1 Mn subscriber threshold in one week .

While the platform is looking forward to achieve more growth in India, the company also unveiled its second pop up space in India which is located in the Delhi.

The space will be available to the content creators from Oct 5-7, 2018. During this time the creators will be free to use the venue for creating their contents. They will also get free access to the production equipment, themed sets among many other to enhance their content production. The budding content creators will also get an opportunity to attend events and workshops which will help them boost their presence on the platform.

“We continue to invest heavily in growing and nurturing the creator community and are thrilled to bring the YouTube Pop-Up Space to the capital,” Lefkowitz said in a statement.

The platform also announced the launch of the NextUp Creator Camp in Delhi. During the camp, the creators will be exposed to the biggies of the industry who will share their knowledge and tips on how to improve the content.

Earlier, YouTube undertook a similar project in Hyderabad in 2017 in order to support the content creators.

According to YouTube, the pop up space is a global initiative which revolves around the concepts of “Learn,” “Connect” and “Create” model of permanent YouTube Spaces.

At present, YouTube spaces are available in 10 locations worldwide including one in Mumbai which was launched in 2015,

The idea of YouTube space is to help bring creative people together  on YouTube to help them learn, connect and  also create content with one another.

In order to compete with other major video content providers like Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hotstar, YouTube is also introducing its YouTube Originals  in India starting with music maestro A R Rahman’s show—  ‘ARRived’.

Initially, the platform will begin India Originals with its ad-supported platform but have plans to launch ad-free subscription service dubbed as YouTube Premium.

Online Video Consumption In India

India has been undergoing the digitisation phase where the country is aiming for deeper internet and smartphone penetration.

With government initiatives like ‘Digital India’ and other operators like JIO, Airtel among many others are providing internet at low cost to increase its adaptability.

Along with the increasing availability of internet, the need for accessing contents in various forms has also been increasing.

In the case of video content, as per September 2018  KPMG report, the online video viewing audience in India is estimated to be around 225 Mn in FY18 and is projected to increase to 550 Mn by FY23.

According to a  May 2018 KPMG report, online video consumption grew five times more in 2017 leaving behind consumption of social media or data as a whole.

The report also states that over 90% of the watch time has been recorded via mobile where an users are approximately  spending  time two and a half times more in watching videos on their mobile rather than on web.

On the global front, revenues from over-the-top (OTT) players, are expected to reach $120 Bn by 2022 as compared to $64 Bn in 2017, growing at a CAGR of more than 13%.

As the need for online video consumption increases, initiatives like this will surely help the content creators in India to produce high quality videos and meet the ever growing demand.