Social’s new prime time is TV: YouTube CTV time up 219% in India

New Delhi: YouTube’s big-screen shift is accelerating in India. Between February 2022 and February 2025, viewing hours on connected TVs (CTV) rose 219%, with videos watched on CTV up 407%, signalling a rapid migration of social video into living rooms. 

In the first half of 2025, Indians spent 87% of their YouTube time on mobile, 11% on CTV and 2% on desktop, but the growth trajectory of CTV suggests the living room is becoming a far more important battleground for attention.

Set against that backdrop, Indians now spend an average of 20 hours per visitor each month on social platforms, which collectively reach 89.3% of the country’s total digital population, placing India among the most penetrated social markets globally, according to Comscore’s State of Social 2025 – India Edition. 

Comscore’s platform snapshot for June 2025 shows YouTube on top with 456 million unique visitors, followed by WhatsApp (430M), Instagram (337M) and Facebook (332M). Google Messages (250M) and Telegram (249M) sit just behind the leaders, with Snapchat (122M), X (88M), Messenger (73M), Pinterest (72M), LinkedIn (70M), Reddit (48M) and Discord (27M) rounding out the landscape. Year-on-year shifts indicate Instagram is gaining ground, while several others were flat to lower, underscoring a market still in motion.

Usage skews by age are stark. Among 15–24-year-olds, reach stands at YouTube 91%, Instagram 71%, Facebook 57%, Snapchat 33%, X 16%. For 25–34, it is YouTube 87%, Facebook 76%, Instagram 65%, X 20%, Snapchat 17%. For 35+, the pattern is YouTube 84%, Facebook 58%, Instagram 58%, Snapchat 20%, X 14%. The takeaway: YouTube is near-universal, Instagram over-indexes among younger audiences, and Facebook remains strong with 25+ cohorts.

Format-wise, short video is the engine. On Instagram, Reels account for 69% of all actions (likes, comments, shares, reposts) in H1 2025, with Reels engagement up 4% year-on-year versus H1 2024; carousels comprise the remaining 31%. On Facebook, video attracts a larger share of likes, comments and shares than non-video formats among Indian brands, media and creators—another sign planners should bias toward moving pictures.

Content category mix also matters for planning. In H1 2025, Media & Entertainment drove 47% of social actions in India, with influencer content contributing 21%, followed by Sports & Recreation (20%), Publishing (9%) and others (3%). That share explains why creators and entertainment IPs remain central to reach and interaction strategies.

Finally, the rulebook is shifting. Comscore flags platform changes that will affect distribution and monetisation: Meta’s pivot toward interest-based discovery, Instagram’s feed-post size tweaks, X’s moderation dynamics in India and YouTube’s move to stop monetising repetitive, AI-generated or unoriginal content. The guidance is straightforward: stay agile and align bets, especially short video and the rising CTV footprint on YouTube, with actual audience behaviour.