In the last few years, we have seen the OTT platforms in India starting dynamic development systems. This is to catch markets with a ravenous hunger for provincial Indian substance: both at home and abroad.

While the homegrown market has shown a mushrooming growth for Indian OTT platforms like ZEE5, Voot, Airtel Xstream, ALT Balaji, and a few more. They are now set out on a consistent synchronous abroad walk and extending penetration in the hinterlands.

While OTT platforms were making an imprint for themselves in the Indian market, the COVID-19 emergency sped up the interaction. From only two OTT platform operators in 2012 to around 40 platforms now, the OTT transformation has made some amazing progress.

OTT Platforms India

At present, India is the world’s fastest-growing market. While foreign platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video have been acquiring high market footing in the Indian online streaming market recently, the local OTT industry in India is making an exceptional mark. Many of the Indian online streaming platforms are extending abroad at an astonishing rate.

As per BCG (Boston Consulting Group), the growth of OTT platforms in India will be estimated to be worth $5 billion by the end of 2023.

Let’s understand it with an example, Disney+ Hotstar, an OTT platform owned by Star India, has been accessible by USA and Canada viewers since last year, slowly increasing its OTT market in India and abroad. Also, EROS Now is available in nine countries apart from India.

Due to the pandemic, lots of films and television shows utilize OTT platforms in India as most of the theaters and cinema halls were shut down. It helped the local Indian OTT platforms to expand their market.

How India OTT Platforms are heading to the Global Market?

As per the 2018 December report by the Ministry of External Affairs, about 30 million people of the Indian region residing outside India. Keeping this in mind, OTT platforms in India, such as Zee5, Hoichoi, ALT Balaji, try to extend their global marketing. However, the question is, is the overseas journey going to be smooth sailing? Read on to grab the details.

Going Places

Currently, Voot is one of the top OTT platforms in India. This OTT platform was launched in the UK and follows a clear subscription-led video on demand (SVOD) revenue model.

In order to become one of the top OTT markets in India, the content provider has linked a revenue-sharing telco partnership with Virgin to reach most of the viewers. It will also help this OTT platform to expand its platform to South Asian as well as British youth.

Zee5 entered the OTT industry in India in 2018 and is presently extending to different nations. The organization has associations with Dialog Axiata PLC, a Sri Lankan telecom specialist co-op, and with telecom administration administrator Celcom in Malaysia.

Zee5 is principally targeting worldwide watchers who comprehend Indian languages— like Bengali content for Bangladesh and Tamil content for Sri Lanka. There is no unique content anticipated in any of these global business sectors.

Like Zee5, Eros Now, another top OTT market in India has already had a presence in more than 100 countries. Recently, it announced a partnership with two channels in the UK. These are Virgin Media and metgem.tv. Apart from this, it also has a partnership with US-based OTT platform Roku.

ALTBalaji is another example of the growth of OTT platforms in India and was launched in 2017. ALT Balaji is already available in the international market through Amazon Prime Video. Also, to enhance its global market, this on-demand OTT platform has made a partnership with YuppTV.

It’s an ad-free subscription-based OTT platform and offers 32 original shows in Gujrati, Hindi, Tamil, and Bengali which makes it one of the most popular OTT markets in India.

SonyLIV blocks its content outside of India. Regardless of whether you pay for a superior record and are out of the nation for a brief time, you will not have the option to get to Sony LIV streams. All things being equal, you’ll see a message like, Sony LIV isn’t accessible in your topography. A VPN can break this restriction and you can stream Sony LIV from anywhere across the globe. Install a VPN and connect it with an India service. Switch to the Sony LIV official website and enjoy.

With more than 20 unique shows and 50,000+ long periods of premium content across languages including Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Punjabi, Bengali, and Bhojpuri, MX Player becomes one of the famous OTT industries in India.

Though the MX Player OTT platform was only available in India, however, if you are a citizen of Bangladesh, Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Nepal, and New Zealand, you can still access this top OTT platform. However, for other countries, a VPN will be needed.

Hoichoi is a Bengali OTT platform and was launched in 2017. Hoichoi is one of the most popular regional OTT platforms among the top OTT platforms in India. It caters to more than 260 million native Bengali speakers across the globe.

With 3,000 hours of programming, 600-odd titles, and 250+ million users, Hoichoi becomes one of the fastest and on-demand OTT markets in India as well as around the world (especially popular among Bengalis across the globe).

SVF, one of eastern India’s largest film studios, is the owner of Hoichoi. Bear in mind, people from Bangladesh, India, the UAE, and other 100 countries can take a premium membership of the Hoichoi platform. 

A recent report states that since the pandemic lockdown in March 2020, the viewership of Hoichoi has increased almost 3 to 4 times. 

Unfamiliar Terrain?

Remember that, top OTT platforms like Netflix India, and Amazon Prime Video already make a strong footprint on the global market. Bear in mind, it is always a difficult task to grab viewers’ attention who are already watching content on other platforms as well as maintain the quality that is being delivered to those watchers.

Besides, consumer acquisition overseas will become the more challenging tasks that OTT platforms in India need to overcome. As per experts opinion there’s always a demand for Indian content; however, reaching out these contents to inexpensive customers and downloading can be tricky and time-consuming and the OTT industry in India should think about it.

Conclusion

As said earlier, lockdown affected the movie lovers’ theatre experience and because of this filmmakers release more movies on the OTT platforms. As per a recent report, the OTT platforms India market will reach from Rs 42.50 billion (US$576.73 million) in FY19 to Rs. 237.86 billion (US$3.22 billion) by FY25. Also, by FY23, India will have more than 500+ subscribers and all these things happen because of the increased smartphone and internet penetration. Keeping these things in mind, India’s top OTT platforms utilize different tactics to reach a global audience.