The online video industry in India is seeing massive growth with independent creators going mainstream, big broadcasters launching their OTT platforms and marketers sitting up and taking notice. Amidst the buzz, the original digital video destination YouTube is focussed on improving the user experience through features like YouTube Offline. It has also set up a video production studio in Mumbai to fuel content creation. In conversation with BrandWagon’s Chandni Mathur, YouTube’s Ajay Vidyasagar talks about changing online video consumption and more. Excerpts:
How has the video consumption landscape in India changed in the last few years?
Seven out of 10 Indian netizens watch online videos. With 350 million Indians online, that’s a huge base. From a YouTube standpoint, 2015 was a breakout year for the online video industry in India. We have always believed that distribution of video content will move over to IP. We saw this take shape last year in India. Many home-grown, young, independent creators went mainstream, inspiring thousands of video creators in India. Not just audiences, but marketers and advertisers also took note of this rising breed of stars on the internet. With no middleman and easy access to a large audience base which is hungry for choice, these video creators are finding audiences across a variety of content and genres.
What are the challenges that you need to overcome here?
Over 50% of YouTube consumption comes from mobile phones in India and while Indians love online video, they are also cautious of how they use data on their phones. Another problem is the quality of telecom networks in India. We had to overcome both these challenges to make YouTube work for people who use data very cautiously and want to enjoy a buffer-free experience. We have launched many India-first initiatives to this end. YouTube Offline which was first launched in India is now available across the world. It has had a significant impact on the number of people using YouTube and the number of users spending longer sessions on our platform. More recently, we have also introduced Smart Offline, which allows users to schedule offlining their favourite videos overnight when data packs are cheaper.
How have the ad revenues grown? Does the skip ad function impact advertisers/ad revenues?
While we don’t break our revenues by country or by property, it’s safe to say that YouTube today is part of every major campaign in the country. Advertisers today realise the value of the return on investment they get with online video and we have seen some great examples of how advertisers are investing in driving engagement on YouTube through branded content and innovative campaigns. The True-View ad format is a win-win for everyone and is the most preferred ad format by marketers. It makes the campaign more measurable and puts users in charge of the content they want to engage with more deeply. While YouTube is a mainstream entertainment destination in India already, we are only getting started.
How has YouTube’s watch-time grown in India?
In the last one year, YouTube’s watch-time in India has grown by 80% and the hours of content uploaded have grown by 90%. This is due to the growth of the content creator ecosystem that continues to offer fresh and relevant content. In India, our user community is a reflection of the user base of the internet in the country. With a few caveats, the most engaged audience on YouTube is in the age group of 15 to 35 and over 40% is female. We are seeing rapid growth coming from smaller cities as well and our language content consumption in South India is growing by leaps and bounds.
With Star, Eros, Viacom etc having their own OTT platforms now, how does their pulling out content from YouTube affect you?
There is a lot of excitement in the online video space and we are seeing a lot of experimentation in the industry. This indicates that the industry is maturing really fast here. On our part, we continue to work with a lot of players in the industry and expect to see more mainstream content creators to go online. Some of the brands have a very robust YouTube content strategy to service their users in India and outside. Most of these partners have their content available across a lot of platforms including their own and that is how we work with all of them. We believe there is a home for every video on YouTube and that it will always be a valuable destination and distribution platform for all these OTT players.
The competition is set to increase further with Amazon planning to launch Prime Video in India. How well prepared are you to deal with competition?
We are pleased with the growth we are witnessing on YouTube in India. There are a lot of players who now operate in the online video space and there is intense competition which is great for users and the creator ecosystem.
There were plans to launch YouTube Red here. What was the reason of backing out? Are there plans to launch it in India at all?
YouTube Red is not available in India yet. It’s still early days and we are not disclosing specific numbers other than to say that we are very pleased with the adoption of YouTube Red so far in the countries where it is available.
Chandni.Mathur@expressindia.com, @chandni_mathur
