India’s screen economy is entering a new phase of growth, driven by online video, connected television, retail media and artificial intelligence (AI), even as traditional television continues to lose ground.
The market is estimated at $12.5 billion in 2026, up from $9.5 billion in 2021, according to Vivek Couto, CEO and executive director of Media Partners Asia. Speaking at the Ficci Frames summit in Mumbai on Tuesday, Couto said the market is expected to reach $15.4 billion by 2031, with most incremental growth coming from online video.
The shift is already visible in the market mix. Television has declined from about $7 billion in 2021 to $4.8 billion, while online video has nearly tripled to $6 billion. By 2031, online video is projected to reach around $10 billion, with premium video accounting for 53%.
India’s screen spending remains low compared with developed markets, at about 0.3% of gross domestic product (GDP), against 0.8-1% in the US, Japan and South Korea. On a per-capita basis, India spends roughly $8 on screens, compared with nearly $900 in the US.
Couto described this gap as a potential runway for growth. A key driver is broadband, which surpassed television in reach around four years ago, with the gap continuing to widen. The expansion is increasing the addressable market for online video and reshaping the economics of content and advertising.
Monetisation is increasingly following audience growth. Online-video advertising overtook linear television in 2024 and has tripled since 2021, while subscription revenues have also expanded, albeit with a lag.
Online video is now a roughly $6 billion market, comprising about $1.5 billion of subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) and $4.5 billion of advertising-supported video-on-demand (AVOD). Premium video within AVOD has emerged as a fast-growing segment, reaching about $3 billion and matching user-generated content for the first time.
The growth in streaming comes even as overall content investment remains broadly flat at around $5 billion. Online-video content investment, however, has almost tripled since 2021 to $2.6 billion and overtook television last year. Sports now accounts for a larger share of investment, while entertainment’s share has fallen to about 57%.
Connected television is opening another avenue for growth. India now has approximately 65 million active connected-TV households, creating an advertising opportunity of about $850 million that could match traditional television advertising by next year, Couto said.
The next opportunity is to connect video more directly with commerce. Retail media has grown nearly tenfold, from $300 million in 2020 to $3.1 billion today. For streaming platforms, the convergence could turn online video from a reach medium into one that connects advertising with consumer discovery and purchase.
AI could further alter the economics of the sector, with applications spanning production, localisation, marketing, content discovery and retention. It could also make formats such as microdramas and interactive or dual-screen experiences more viable, particularly in smaller markets where localized content has traditionally been difficult to produce profitably.
India may already have the world’s largest screen audience, but its spending per consumer remains low by global standards. The next phase, therefore, will be less about reaching more viewers and more about monetizing that scale efficiently.
Source: The Financial Express
