Digital media to reach $5.1 billion by 2021

Mumbai: With the increasing large base of internet users, digital media in the country is expected to overtake film entertainment in 2019 and print by 2021 to reach $5.1 billion in 2021, according to a FICCI-EY report.

Film segment was valued at $2.5 billion in 2018 and estimated to be $2.8 billion in 2019, while print was valued at $4.4 billion in 2018 and estimated to reach $4.8 billion in 2021.

Digital media grew by 42 per cent in 2018, valued at $2.4 billion, it said noting that Indians spent 30 per cent of their phone time on entertainment.

It expects the digital medium to be $3.2 billion in 2019. India has the world's second-highest number of internet users after China, with around 570 million internet subscribers, growing at a rate of 13 per cent annually.

There were 325 million online video viewers and 150 million audio streaming users in 2018. It expects the country to have 30-35 million paying OTT video subscribers and 6-7 million paying audio subscribers by 2021.

The advertising-led model was valued at $2.2 billion, while the subscription was valued at $0.2 billion in 2018. By 2021, it estimates ad model to be $4.3 billion and the subscription model to be $0.8 billion.

"While watch time could grow 3 to 3.5x over the next five years, resulting in a massive inventory growth, advertising revenues will grow only around 2x. CPMs (cost per mile) will correspondingly fall during the period for non- premium inventory," it said.

It noted that telecom operators would become the new multi-system operators.