YouTube & Meta capture lion's share of India's video ad spend

New Delhi: The Asia Video Industry Association's 2025 report states that in the first nine months of 2024, UGC and social video, led by YouTube and Meta, accounted for 89% of online video viewership and captured 57% of online video revenue in India.

According to the report, after taking a breather in 2023, the SVOD market experienced a sharp rebound, with the number of subscriptions rising from 110 million in Q4 2023 to 120 million by the end of 1H 2024. 

By subscribers, Disney+ Hotstar, Jio Cinema, Netflix and Prime Video lead the SVOD market.

Premium video monetisation and viewership are skewed in favour of the sports genre, dominated by the IPL on Jio Cinema and the ICC T20 World Cup on Disney+ Hotstar. 

Combined the two sporting events accounted for ~70% of premium video ad revenues. 

Since Q4 2023, heightened M&A activity halted the commissioning and acquisitions of

new projects, except for Netflix, which capitalised on the buyer’s market to aggressively acquire streaming rights to post-theatrical hits and experiment with new content formats. 

Netflix, Jio Cinema, and Disney+ Hotstar collectively captured ~70% of premium video revenue and 60% of total viewership.

With the onset of the festive season and upbeat consumer sentiment, advertising spending remained robust in 2H 2024. However, with no major sports events, spending shifted toward tentpole non-fiction shows on premium video platforms, with a significant portion moving back to high-reach UGC platforms like YouTube and Meta. 

The increasing popularity of AVOD among Indian audiences is evidenced by platforms such as Amazon MiniTV, which has a 23% viewer penetration rate and highlights a move towards free programming in exchange for advertisements.

The report also mentioned that while the streaming space is growing rapidly in India, piracy remains a significant challenge in the digital video sector. When left unchecked, streaming piracy fueled by the illegal acquisition of premium content is growing exponentially, diverting revenue from legitimate providers to pirate service operators. 

Suggesting blocking to be one of the most effective anti-piracy enforcement measures, the report focuses on obliging ISPs to deny consumers access to a particular site, or service.

Furthermore, the report highlighted how blocking access to premium live-streaming sports content has proven to be an effective way to tackle piracy issues related to premium sports content.

However, the report also highlighted that in India site-blocking led to a one-year 8% increase in lawful streaming in 2019, and in Brazil, it increased lawful streaming by 5% in 2021. The alignment of legal frameworks and advanced technology solutions, including blocking, is essential for a comprehensive anti-piracy strategy, and so is a collaborative approach between all stakeholders. This approach enables operators and broadcasters to protect their content and revenue streams more effectively and is key to staying ahead of increasingly sophisticated piracy operations.