MX Player will be biggest beneficiary of Indian OTT growth: Satyan Gajwani

Platform is not profitable today but will grow rapidly, says vice chairman of Times Internet.

OTT is the "biggest shakeup" in the Indian consumer landscape and set to become primary medium for entertainment, says Satyan Gajwani, vice chairman of Times Internet Limited and board director, Times of India, in an interview with Vanita Kohli-Khandekar.

The strategic and operational relevance of MX for Times Internet.

MX Player is the largest OTT in India. For consumers, it satisfies a growing demand for consumer video; for advertisers, it provides a brand-safe, large-scale entertainment ecosystem.

MX Player’s contribution to revenues and growth.

MX is one of the fastest-growing pieces in our well-diversified portfolio. It is not profitable today but has grown from 10 per cent of our revenue to 15 per cent over the last two years. We expect it to grow rapidly as one of our main investment businesses. OTT as a category has grown hugely in the last three years. Now with scale, the shift in revenue from TV to OTT has really accelerated in the last one year. OTT will become the primary medium for consumer entertainment ad dollars over the next few years and therefore presents the biggest shakeup in the Indian consumer landscape in the last 30 years. MX Player has scaled from a local video player to India's largest consumer entertainment platform. It stands to be the biggest beneficiary of this shift.

The revenue and traffic target for MX in the next few years.

MX Player reaches 300 million monthly users today. As it cements its position in OTT and rolls out new products, we expect this to double in the next three years. Revenue growth should outpace user growth, as the demand for premium video advertising and shift to digital spending grows.

Is it correct to say that Times Internet is totally dependent on MX for a bulk of its numbers?

No, that wouldn't be correct. Today, Times Internet owns and operates five properties each with over 100 million monthly users, of which MX Player is one of them. It is our largest destination for video content consumption, but users demand different experiences at different times and we take pride in being leaders in the relevant media categories: TOI for news, ET for business news, NBT for Hindi news, Cricbuzz for sports, and Gaana for music. Because of the breadth of our offerings, the same user consumes multiple Times Internet properties every month. In terms of unique reach, 24 per cent of our users use MX Player and no other Times Internet properties.