Streaming video biz in India generated 174K direct, indirect jobs in 2023

More jobs, revenue and stories: MPA measures the impact of streaming on India's creative economy

The streaming video business in India generated 174,000 direct and indirect jobs in 2023. This will rise to 331,000 by 2028. It is now pulling more talent from cities other than Mumbai, Hyderabad, or Chennai as myriad shows are shot and created in other parts of India. For instance, Kohrra (Netflix) was shot in Punjab, The Last Hour (Prime Video) was shot entirely in the northeastern states and in West Bengal.

Panchayat (Prime Video), the most popular show online, has been shot in Madhya Pradesh. The diversity in locations and languages has produced some good storytelling and improved opportunities for talent across the board for actors, writers, and technicians. And the entry of global players such as Netflix or Prime has meant workshops and industry practices that help the video business integrate better with the rest of the world. Streaming has also been a catalyst for several other businesses such as tourism and telecom. Data revenues brought 85 per cent of telecom revenues in 2022: video drives over 70 per cent of data traffic.

Total Video Revenue in India - By Segment (US$ bil)

Year	Pay-TV Channel Business Revenue	UGC Revenue	Premium Video Revenue	Total
2016	3.9	0.1	0.1	4.1
2017	4.2	0.2	0.1	4.6
2018	4.7	0.4	0.4	5.5
2019	5	0.7	0.6	6.2
2020	4.1	0.9	0.7	5.6
2021	5	1.2	1	7.1
2022	5.2	1.8	1.3	8.3
2023	5.4	2.1	1.7	9.1
2024	5.6	2.4	2.1	10
2025	5.8	2.7	2.5	11
2026	5.9	3	2.9	11.8
2027	6	3.3	3.3	12.6
2028	6	3.6	3.7	13.2

Media Partners Asia’s (MPA) latest piece of research, Beyond Screens - Streaming VOD’s Impact on India’s Creative Economy, is a nicely done deep dive on the impact of the growth of online video. “Streaming has been around in India for long; SVoD (subscription video on demand) came in 2015 with Hotstar. We have always looked at it from an ad and pay revenue projection perspective. The idea this time was to go beyond this to take a look at the socio-economic impact, the multiplier effect,” says Mihir Shah, vice president, MPA.

Overall Video Content Investment  in India - (US$ bil.)

Year	Online Video	Television	Sports (TV +Digital)	Movies	Total
2017	0.2	1.4	0.6	0.4	2.7
2018	0.3	1.7	0.8	0.5	3.3
2019	0.4	1.8	0.9	0.7	3.7
2020	0.5	1.4	0.7	0.2	2.9
2021	0.8	1.7	0.9	0.3	3.8
2022	1	1.9	1.2	0.7	4.9
2023	1.4	1.9	1.8	0.7	5.8
2024	1.5	2	2.4	0.8	6.7
2025	1.7	2	2.3	0.8	6.9
2026	1.9	2.1	2.5	0.9	7.4
2027	2.2	2.1	2.9	1	8.2
2028	2.6	2.1	3	1	8.8

The report also offers all the numbers. The stories they tell are interesting too. There are now 59 online video platforms in India, up from 12 in 2015. Of this, the top six, Disney+ Hotstar, Prime Video, Netflix, Sony LIV, Zee5, and Voot/Jio Cinema, account for more than 90 per cent of India’s streaming video subscribers and a bulk of the pay revenues. That is about $425 million or 25 per cent of the $1.7 billion (just over Rs 14,000 crore) the premium online video market generated in all revenues. The rest comes from advertising. The total revenues streaming made are expected to more than double to $3.7 billion (over Rs 30,000 crore) by 2028.

Potential Employment Generation  by the online video business ('000)

Year	Direct Jobs	Indirect Jobs	Total
2016	5	4	9
2017	8	7	14
2018	19	18	37
2019	39	39	78
2020	55	55	110
2021	72