Assignment: Term Paper on Jio’s Role in the OTT Industry

A report submitted to
Prof. Ramesh Venkateswaran

In partial fulfillment of the requirements of the course

Product Strategy and Management

By
Group 11
Ujjwal Bansal (1911279)
Ujjwal Kumar Mandal (1911280)
Utkarsh Rohilla (1911282)
Vibhor Rajesh Bhaise (1911291)
Vinay Kumar (1911293)

On
24-09-2020

Indian Institute of Management |

Udaipur
About the OTT Industry
The OTT industry of India has seen an exponential rise in recent years. According to a report
by INC42(1), Indian customers currently have access to about 95 OTT platforms for streaming
video, audio, music, podcast, etc. In the times of Covid-19. These platforms have seen an
enormous surge, and the user time on the OTT platforms in India has increased from 30% to
60% since early March 2020 (see Exhibit 1).
Until only a few years ago, almost all of the Indian customers would have to indulge in
spending money for movie theatres to watch their favorite movie or wait for months at a time
to be able to watch them on the television. At times for the popular weekend shows, the
consumers would have to wait the whole week to be able to view what ended up being only
35-40 mins of actual content in an hour with the rest of the time being used up by
advertisements, that frankly got very repetitive and boring after a point. The entry of the OTT
platforms such as ZEE 5, Disney+ Hotstar, Amazon Prime Video, Netflix with some smaller
players such as Voot, SonyLIV, Ullu, MXPlayer, Alt Balaji, Eros Now, BIGFlix, Spuul, Sun
NXT, and Hoichoi amongst others have turned around the consumer behavior in terms of
consuming content.

The concept of binge-watching has taken root in the market. It is extremely popular amongst
the millennials and the gen-Z, taking a center-stage and being a dominant way of consuming
content for them (See Exhibit 2). The Covid-19 pandemic, which has become the bane for
most industries, has been a massive driver for the growth of the OTT industry. There has
been an enormous rise in terms of viewership, subscribers, and content creators. Every single
day, newer audiences begin their consumption of this kind of content, be it in terms of videos,
music, audios, or podcast. A huge reason for it has been the sheer convenience and the ease
of consuming the content on-the-go, which fits in quite well with the hectic lifestyles of
today. As a matter of fact, the content consumption in India has grown by about 35% in the
period from January 2020 to April 2020, with the most significant jump being in the short-
video format of the content during the lockdown.

In this report, you’ll be provided a thorough analysis of how the OTT market has grown in
India and also try to understand what are the growth opportunities that look promising for this
segment in the future. We have tried to understand the various features of the Indian OTT
landscape, the key stakeholders and players, the varying content available to the consumers,
and the consumer behavior and preferences. We have also looked into what has been the
impact of Covid-19 on these factors, the spreading effect of regional content displayed by the
vernacularization of content, and what could be the future repercussions of it.

Growth of the Industry

The OTT market in India has been growing exponentially with the total market valuation
being about ₹2,150 crores, i.e., ₹21.5 billion as of the end of the fiscal year 2018, which
grew to about ₹3500 crores, i.e., ₹35 billion in 2019(2). According to a report by KPMG, i.e.,
the KPMG Media and Entertainment Report 2018 (3), the industry is expected to grow at a
CAGR of 45% and reach a total value of about ₹13,800 crores, i.e., ₹138 billion by the end
of the financial year 2023. A report by Ernst & Young (4) claims that the total number of OTT
content consumers would cross the 500 million mark by 2020, which turned out to be
accurate, making India the largest market for OTT consumption after the US. Adding to that,
the global pandemic has boosted this number to reach an all-time high of nearly 600 million

Mobile Data Services – The Drivers for Growth

One of the biggest drivers of growth for the OTT platforms has been the data revolution ins
India. Access to high bandwidth internet at very low mobile data tariffs combined with access
to increasingly better devices with the latest technologies all across the nation has made the
Indian market the near-perfect breeding ground for OTT offerings. There is an ever-
increasing urge in the consumers to consume more and more content amid the very hectic
lifestyles. So the need of the hour is for content that can be consumed on-the-go and without
the restrictions that traditional content channels can’t avoid. If anything, the demand has been
growing so fast that the content creators are finding themselves hard-pressed to keep up with
it, and most of them have begun to lag behind. This creates a gap that can be very neatly be
addressed, leading to the boom in the industry with more and more companies now entering
into the market both as content creators and platform providers field for both – B2B and B2C
services.

The entry of Jio into the mobile data market set the ball rolling for cheap, fast, and reliable
internet services in India, leading to a massive boom in the mobile data subscribers’ market.
To quote a figure, about 30 million new subscribers joined the internet in the period between
March-November 2019 from the rural parts of the country. This number came in addition to a
total of 504 million user base that already existed, out of which 71 million users were of the
age group of 5-11 years who use the internet services on either their own personal devices or
their family-owned devices. This fact implies that there is an entirely new segment for the
OTT players to target that wasn’t so visible earlier. In fact, the whole market, in its entirety,
merely has too much-untapped potential to be able to be addressed by a few players. This
explains the very high density of players in the OTT market. As per some reports, the market
is still mostly untapped. Most new users try new platforms and exploit the free trials and
discount offers as much as possible without really committing to a particular platform for a
long time, making customer retention another factor for the OTT platform players.

But this retention issue is not due to the services being subpar or not up to expectations. On
the contrary, customers are having a gala time. They simply have too many options to choose
from. The platform providers provide excellent services in terms of OTT and music
streaming, which the customers can consume at their convenience. These services are highly
personalized, providing customized content to the consumers based on their behaviors,
profile, and choices. All of this has created a massive attraction for the customers, and the
OTT industry is seeing an ever-growing consumer base that continually looks for something
more.

All the OTT players in India are searching for their respective niches to service and face their
own challenges in the process (see Exhibit 3). While the international giants like Netflix,
Amazon Prime Video, SonyLIV and Apple TV+ are facing the issue of finding the right
balance between pricing and their content library, the smaller or regional players like MX
Player, Hotstar, JioCinema, ShemarooMe, Hoichoi, SunNXT, JioTV, Zee5, Voot and such
are battling over the Indian original content and providing the content in the regional
languages

According to a report by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and CII (4), there has been a
significant increase in digital video consumption in India, almost doubling in the last two
years. It also tells us that the average time spent by Indians increased to 24 minutes per day
from the previous of 11 minutes (as of November 2019)

Payment Models and Offerings

One key feature of consumer behavior in India has always been that they still prefer free
products and services. Therefore, even in the case of OTT content, most consumers prefer to
get this content for free and prefer platforms that offer this rather than those having paid
subscriptions. Due to these insights, a large number of the OTT platforms have been trying
out subscription-based video-on-demand (SVOD) models. These models can be monthly,
yearly, or may even be bundled with the offers of telecom companies or other platforms.
Some of the players trying this out are Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and some others as
well. While this has been happening, some of the platforms are still relying on the old
advertising-based video-on-demand (AVOD) models. Others try to offer freemium models,
trying to get the users hooked on the platform and then enticing them to become paid
subscribers.

While the hashing out of subscription models is being done, another factor for the OTT
players has been localization of content and making it more relevant to smaller and more
local audiences to be able to connect with them. The area of focus has become offering more
regional languages, the geography of offerings, user experience, and so on. The most
preferred languages in the country have been Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Bengali, Gujarati, and
Marathi. But while this is true, other than the seven core providers for local content such as
SunNXT, Ullu, AltBalaji, and others, most others have English as their core area of focus.

Changes wrought in the industry

The Covid-19 pandemic has wholly overturned what normal means for all humans on the
planet. In the midst of such turmoil, more and more customers have started turning towards
the OTT platforms for satisfying their content needs. These platforms have become
conversation starters for people, as people contact each other to ask for or exchange their
subscriptions to various platforms.

A large amount of content is now being prepared for the OTT platforms. Most big releases
such as movies and music have been on these platforms, creating significant buzz and
attention around them on social media. Experts feel that even as the effect of the pandemic
would slowly begin to cease, these trends would most probably stay. People would be fearful
of visiting theatres and cinema halls while having the comfort of all kinds of content right
within their reach.

The demand for OTT platforms has been like never before, and the platforms have been rapid
to take advantage of this situation. They are leveraging the opportunity that they’ve gotten
and are coming with strategies such as new shows and better content to attract and retain
consumers on their platforms. This has also borne handsome returns for the platforms, as can
be seen in the case of Eros Now and Disney+. Eros Now has had a growth of nearly 80% in
the consumption of data and has almost doubled the subscribers in just a couple of weeks.
Even Disney+ has reached a subscriber base of over 50 million within only five months of its
launch, out of which 8 million are from India.

The pandemic has caused people to stay within their homes for a very long time, and no one
was used to doing that. This led to increased consumption of content in the form of media and
entertainment. This has led to a considerable boost in the area of digital entertainment.
Television, music streaming, video streaming, online gaming, podcasts – all of these have
become the best possible forms of entertainment for the people stuck in their homes with
nothing exciting to do.

The Emergence of Reliance Jio

Reliance Industries Ltd, through its Jio TV plus platform, would offer content from 12
popular video streaming platforms with Netflix and Amazon Prime being the main attraction.
All other platforms provide content that is mostly exclusive to them, but it is the first time in
India where consumers will enjoy content from different platforms. These offerings would
form a category of an umbrella offer called Jio Fiber, which again gives us a host of other
features like Internet access, Television access, etc.
As the OTT platform would form one of the features of Jio Fiber, the most basic membership
plan of the offerings starts from ₹399 and goes up to a few thousand rupees. All the plans
have been curated as per the needs of an individual or family. Features and some aspects
improve as we move to a higher plan. As Jio is one of the leading telecom providers in the
country, any issues related to data consumption for accessing OTT platforms could be easily
solved, and bundled offering is the main attraction of the subscription.
As the offering are the newest in the market, calculating their market share at this point
would not be appropriate. One more thing is the OTT platform comes under the bundled
offering. So, comparing a bundled offering with just Netflix or Amazon Prime doesn’t look
right. Also, for a reason mentioned before, growth again can’t be appropriated as of now.
Reliance has initially targeted Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities in India, where internet access is better
than other places. Also, the target segment seems to be middle class to upper-class people
who are now using services from different vendors and are looking for a bundled package.
The offer appears to be perfect for anyone who accesses other OTT platforms, as this will
allow the user to have all the options and pay less compared to individual services.
As per the information available, Jio would be outsourcing all the content from different
content providers. As it would be a content aggregator, users can expect a wide variety and a
diversified combination of content available in various languages, genres, locations, etc. Jio,
as of now, has no plans for content creation, and for the time being, it will only provide
access to other’s content.
The offerings are relatively new in the market, so judging consumer perception would not be
possible now. We have to wait for some time before concluding. As per the initial
information, the reaction from the consumers is very encouraging as customers even have to
wait for their subscription. Free trial of the service has also created a positive outlook in the
minds of the customers who are looking for the services.

An Overview of the Other Incumbents

Hotstar

As per a market overview, the most prominent and mainstream OTT platform in India is
Hotstar (see Exhibit 4), trailed by Amazon Prime Video and SonyLIV. Hotstar as a platform
had a phenomenal journey from being the most loved and convenient destination for cricket
lovers to making the series, ‘Game of Thrones’, an easily recognizable name. The fans of the
show would wake up as early as 6:30 am to catch up on the latest scenes and episodes of the
show. This kind of fan following and craze amongst the consumers how Hotstar has
progressed significantly. In the process, it has also played a critical role in patronizing the
country’s binge-watching culture by making sure that the customers are never too far from
the content they love.
Hotstar, being the most comprehensive premium streaming platform of India, delivered the
‘India Watch Report 2019’. The scope of the report was to investigate the behavior of
consumers while consuming online content and the patterns that could be detected. Hotstar
currently owns the most considerable amount of material amongst all the OTT platforms
operating in India - over 1,00,000 hours of TV shows and motion pictures in 8 dialects —
and a client base reaching out over the region. The third release of the report demonstrates
Hotstar’s continuous and flourishing association with its watchers and India’s video
utilization propensities on the loose. 
In 2019, men indicated a very high affinity towards watching family dramas or the ‘Saas-
Bahu’ shows as they are called. Over 40% of the population watching these family shows
were men, breaking the long-held stereotype and false conviction that such content does not
appeal to men. Meanwhile, the female population is likewise consuming an increasingly
significant amount of the content after careful curation, making up 45 percent of the total
entertainment consumption online.
With 400+ million downloads, Hotstar is one of the most downloaded applications in India.
Contrasted with 2018, it enrolled two times the installs and three times the growth in
utilization this year, taking Hotstar’s undertakings in the advanced video utilization space to
new frontiers. Non-metros are exceeding metros as far as video utilization, with over 63%
of online entertainment utilization originating from non-metros. The regional content has
grown significantly to represent nearly 40 percent of the total content generation and
consumption. Smartphones remain the primary choice of viewing screen for customers in a
significant way. During the 2019 cricket season, viewership on Hotstar reflected the patterns
on TV. 

One of India’s most famous real-time features, Hotstar dispatched a vivid and intelligent
game, Watch 'N Play, to give its customers a voice and connect with others. According to a
web-based survey, Hotstar has moved towards an immersive and social type of experience
instead of an uninvolved, single direction medium. Roughly 64million watchers took an
interest in Watch ‘N’ Play during live matches on Hotstar during VIVO IPL 2019, twice the
amount that was present just a year ago.
Riding on these insights and innovative marketing solutions, Hotstar has emerged as the
preferred choice for marketers to build engaging narratives around their brands. With India
Watch Report 2019, marketers now have access to timely insights and exclusive data to
design their marketing strategies. Moreover, these insights also present unique perspectives
on the habits of their target consumers, particularly their content consumption habits
With a sharp spotlight on cricket and substance associations, Hotstar drives the present OTT
market. As per the review, 56% of Hotstar’s clients hail from metro urban areas. The
platform additionally has the most elevated entrance of non-paying clients. The live
streaming of sports like Kabaddi league, football league, and cricket adds significant value in
content variety. The live streaming is the most sought-after feature of Hotstar, but regional
material like series, movies, etc. also adds substantial value to the platform.

Netflix

Netflix is an American media service provider and production company founded in 1997.
Their initial business model was DVD sales and rental by mail. In 2007, they started their
streaming media while retaining their DVD business model. Soon, Netflix becomes a staple
in American households. At present, the majority of its 137 million subscribers are
international subscribers (see Exhibit 5). This global streaming company has expanded to
over 190 countries, but India is one of the countries where Netflix faces difficulty breaking.
Historically it has been seen that Netflix has taken an average of 3 years to penetrate a 10%
market in new geographical locations. Thanks to Jio, in part to the drastic drop in mobile data
prices, streaming services became economical and appealing to Indians (see Exhibit 6).
Before that, mobile data was considered a luxury in India. Now, India is the largest internet
market in the world after China. 

Netflix follows a subscription-based business model (see Exhibit 7). The significant expense
for their streaming business model is from content production, licensing for TV
shows/movies, and marketing. They don’t do advertisements on their platform. So, the only
source of revenue generation comes from subscription fees. For the first 30 days, they
provide it for a free trial. After that, they charge monthly payments, which range from
₹500/month to ₹800/month.  
More than 35 different streaming services have launched or expanded their businesses in
India in the last three-and-a-half years. Hot Star is leading the race in streaming services.
Rights to telecast live Cricket steaming helped them to gain subscribers. Customers have to
pay a yearly subscription fee to watch live cricket, which also opened the doors for pitching
their TV shows and movies. One of the research firms estimates that Hotstar holds about
70% of the on-demand local streaming services market. Even Amazon Prime video is more
prominent than Netflix in India; they have only 5% of the market. India’s online video market
is valued at over $700 million. This is expected to reach $2.4 billion in value by 2023. But
according to researchers, Netflix is not holding a massive piece of that pie. There are
somewhere between 0.5 million and 1 million paid streaming subscribers in India right now.
That constitutes just 1.4% of the market (see Exhibit 8).

Netflix used the same strategy to target audience in India. They still didn’t even change the
prices. Thus, Netflix has become a premium streaming service, and people who have excess
cash and watch mainstream TV/ movies only buy it. Now they have infused $15 billion for
making original content in regional language. But the prices are still the same, and they don’t
want to enter live sports streaming in India.

Netflix has stayed away from streaming live sports in the United States. It’s the same strategy
they followed in other countries, and that’s worked well so far. But it didn’t work well in
India as the leading liver streamer Hotstar gained 70% of the market because of the live-
streaming of cricket. Also, there’s a hunger for local content, and Hotstar captured it well by
borrowing shows in regional languages from Star India, its parent company. Netflix has now
taken note of regional language demand for TV shows and movies. They have invested $15
billion for making content. They recently launched their first TV show, ‘Sacred Games’,
which was a significant hit. 

Pricing is one of the reasons that Hotstar has an edge over Netflix. The cheapest plan of
Netflix is a little over ₹500 per month, whereas other competitors like Hotstar and amazon
prime charges three times less than Netflix (see Exhibit 9). Amazon prime has lowered his
pricing for the Indian market, but Netflix follows the same pricing strategy for the Indian and
American markets.
Even people who will buy this subscription don’t get all the English content to watch on
Netflix. So, paying ₹6000 for a year seems a waste. Also, there are no strict piracy
regulations from the Indian government. That’s why people prefer to download all the Netflix
shows from pirated sources like a torrent. 
One major issue of the premium subscription of Netflix is that it would consume 5 to 10 GB
of data and will need 5 Mbps of downloading speed to watch 4k movies. They don’t allow
downloading videos if a consumer uses Netflix on their laptop or smart TV as they do for
mobile users. This is the major problem for people to watch 4k videos on their Smart-TV set
even if they buy Netflix premium subscription. They have to invest more money for 5G
internet broadband connection. If the consumer can’t, then they end up watching standard HD
videos for the premium-priced subscription, or they shift from the premium subscription.
Voot
Voot was launched in 2016 and is the online sister of Viacom 18, which has a joint
partnership with TV18 and has founded the channel ‘Colors.’ Voot operates on a freemium
business model, and its primary source of revenue is through advertisements on their
platform. They also provide monthly as well as a yearly subscription. ₹99 for monthly and
₹499 for an annual subscription where they will provide services like 24 hours before TV,
add free experience, etc. Voot has a market share of 10%, with 200 million active users
(Exhibit 4).
The target segment is customers who want to watch regional TV shows and Bollywood
movies. Most of the content they get it from their production houses in most of the local
languages. They have content from Colors TV, MTV India, Nickelodeon, and Viacom 18.
They also stream Bollywood films and have produced many original Voot shows for
streaming. They do provide very few English shows or movies.
People who like to watch TV serials on television have also installed the Voot app on their
phones. They have become regular users. As most of the content on Voot is free, and they
only have to bear the cost of data. Data prices have reduced drastically in the last three years.
Consumer behavior has also changed, and they have started watching TV serials on their
mobile phones instead of television.

Amazon Prime Video

Amazon Prime is a subscription program by Amazon, exclusive for paid users, known as
Prime Members, at a premium price. Prime users get access to all the content of the Amazon
Prime Video app along with additional features like Amazon Prime songs, free one-day
delivery. Amazon introduced Amazon Prime as a membership service in the United States in
2005, but only related to faster delivery, and in December 2015, Amazon announced the
Streaming partners program. This added 3 million subscribers in just one month, and total
subscribers touched the number 54 million in the next month, January 2016. Amazon Prime
video service debuted on 7th September 2006 and was earlier named as Amazon Unbox in the
United States and was then renamed to Amazon Video on 4 th September 2008 on public
demand.
Amazon Prime video offers TV shows and films from a selection of original content by
Amazon Studios or licensed acquisitions and is exclusive for Prime members. In a few
countries, like the UK, US, Germany, Amazon offers video only option, without even
subscribing to the prime membership.
The revenue model of Amazon Prime video is based on Subscription Video on Demand
(SVOD) model, in which users have to subscribe to its plans to watch the videos. The
subscription charges are annually based, unlike its primary competition, Netflix, where the
subscribers are charged every month. The significant expense borne is from content
production, marketing, and licensing of Television shows or movies. They have no
advertisements on their platform. Hence all the costs are to be covered by the subscription fee
charged, which again gets shared with the Prime delivery services.
The market share of Amazon Prime video has crossed more than 10 percent in the Indian
OTT platform; this phenomenal growth was seen in less than two years, as opposed to 1.43
percent market share in November 2018. According to a research firm, the total valuation of
India’s online video market is somewhere over $700 million and is expected to cross $2.4
million by the end of 2023.
Prime Video currently offers services in top Indian languages like Hindi, Bengali, Punjabi,
Marathi, etc. and content is watched in more than 4000 Indian cities. Prime video charges
significantly less for Indian consumers, ₹999 per year, compared to $119 for the US
consumers. There is a difference in the content, obviously, but India originals are being made
exclusively for Indian consumers also. The youth population is targeted based on their
preferences, and this reflects in the fact this segment of the market holds significant
subscriptions for Prime Video. Recently Amazon launched a 50 percent discount for 18-24
years old to target the school and college students at just ₹500 for one year.
The market share of Amazon has increased to 20 percent, recently overtaking Hotstar+, with
no content of sports, unlike Hotstar. Content usually revolves around TV series originals or
licensed from others, recent movies, standup comedy, etc. Content usually targets the youth
population of India, and recently they have invested huge bucks in making original content.
The pricing of Amazon Prime video is very cheap compared to its primary competitor
Netflix. The added advantage users of the prime delivery, usually one-day delivery for prime
users on most of the products available on Amazon, is an additional benefit. One major issue
is not all of the content is available in India, compared to other European countries and US
content, but the platform has been adding to it as time passes.

ALT Balaji
ALT Balaji is a subsidiary of the Balaji Telefilms Ltd and provides digital entertainment via
original OTT content. It has around 27 million paid subscribers, and the content is available
in 32 different interfaces for its users. The company claims to have an immense amount of
content among the Indian OTT platforms, and the genres range from drama, romance,
comedy to thriller and mystery, etc.
Balaji Telefilms claims to make content in less than half of the cost incurred by its peers,
spending about around 40-45 lacs per annum per episode. Earlier, the company used to have
partnerships with telecom companies such as Airtel, Vodafone to air its content. It has now
exited those partnerships with and provides the content directly based on the subscription
model on the ALT Balaji app. The company also plans to exit the Jio partnership soon. It has
a two-year content co-production deal with Zee5 and has around 33 million cumulative paid
subscribers. By the end of the year 2019, ALT Balaji had a subscriber base of 20 million paid
users, with 1 million direct subscriber base and rest from the indirect subscribers, that is,
through other platforms.
The target segment for ALT Balaji is adults, and it provides more content, which is A-rated
and appropriate for audiences above the age of 18. The platform utilizes the lack of
restrictions on the content, exploiting the liberty the digital space provides instead of the
Balaji production TV series, which provides mostly family entertainment and content
appropriate for viewing with the family.
Video content on the platform is available in multiple regional languages such as Hindi,
Bengali, Gujrati and Tamil, Punjabi, and Marathi. The company claims to have over 250
hours of original content with new content coming up every month. Bollywood movies are
also available on this platform, along with the original series content.
The Indian audience has a particular affinity for the ALT Balaji content and is willing to pay
for its subscription fee to watch the content available with them. Seventy-five percent of its
user are binge-watchers and tend to complete a series within seven days of starting its first
episode.

Eros Now
Eros now is an OTT, video-on-demand media and entertainment platform, launched in 2012
by Eros Digital. The platform is accessible via any of the smart devices such as smartphones,
tablets, web, and television via the app for the particular device. The company has its
headquarters in Mumbai and offers its services in English and numerable local Indian
languages. It started its journey by offering movies and music videos as the primary content.
It has added much more content offerings such as web-series, short films, and specially
curated content under the original offerings. Eros Now has also collaborated with various
telecom operators and content players to offer bundled services.
The business model of Eros Now is a subscription-based and has multiple membership plans.
The most basic plan in India is priced at ₹49 and offers standard definition streaming quality.
The quality of streaming improves with higher-priced membership plans. Services such as
offline download, playlists, and watch lists are provided at a higher price point. In the last
few years, Eros Now also started producing its content rather than just partnering with other
content providers. It now also provides tailor-made plans for the local markets of the US, UK,
UAE, etc.
There are about 95 different online streaming platforms in India, with Hotstar being the
overall market leader, followed by Amazon Prime Video (see Exhibit 10). Although Eros
Now is not doing that great in Tier 1 Cities, it enjoys 59 percent market share in Tier 2 and
Tier 3 cities in India within the age bracket of 25-39. Over the last few quarters, it has seen a
slight downfall in the market share. Eros Now targets audience aged between 25 and 39 in
Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities and has priced the membership plans accordingly. Due to this market
segment that they target, only 7 percent of the content is available in English, and the rest of
the 93 percent in Indian languages, with Hindi leading the pack with 60 percent share.
The platform offers access to more than 12,000 digital titles, and the significant offerings are
in the form of movies, television shows, and music videos. The content is offered in more
than 10 Indian regional languages. It also has a collection of international shows. With their
first short film “Toffee” premiering in 2018, Eros Now started with original content.
Recently, it has even begun producing web series and short films. In December 2018, Eros
now launched Eros Now Quickie, which makes short films. Over the last few quarters, the
number of Eros Now’s content has seen a significant rise.
One of the primary reasons for the platform’s success in Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities is the price of
their offerings and the streaming language. With membership plans starting at ₹49, small and
regional cities find it easier to buy. People associate themselves with the content as the
majority of it is present in local languages. The reason that they are not able to perform in
main cities could be the presence of platforms such as Amazon Prime, Netflix, and Hotstar,
which, although a little expensive but provides more diversified content and in more
diversified languages. One of the strengths of Eros Now is the low price point, but only
through this, Eros Now cannot capture the market in the metro cities. To gain share in metro
cities, they have to offer more than regional content.  

Reliance Jio
Reliance Industries Ltd, through its Jio TV plus platform, would offer content from 12
popular video streaming platforms with Netflix and Amazon Prime being the main attraction.
All other platforms provide content that is mostly exclusive to them, but it is the first time in
India where consumers will enjoy content from different platforms. These offerings would
form a category of an umbrella offer called Jio Fiber, which again gives us a host of other
features like Internet access, Television access, etc.
As the OTT platform would form one of the features of Jio Fiber, the most basic membership
plan of the offerings starts from ₹399 and goes up to a few thousand rupees. All the plans
have been curated as per the needs of an individual or family. Features and some aspects
improve as we move to a higher plan. As Jio is one of the leading telecom providers in the
country, any issues related to data consumption for accessing OTT platforms could be easily
solved, and bundled offering is the main attraction of the subscription.
As the offering are the newest in the market, calculating their market share at this point
would not be appropriate. One more thing is the OTT platform comes under the bundled
offering. So, comparing a bundled offering with just Netflix or Amazon Prime doesn’t look
right. Also, for a reason mentioned before, growth again can’t be appropriated as of now.
Reliance has initially targeted Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities in India, where internet access is better
than other places. Also, the target segment seems to be middle class to upper-class people
who are now using services from different vendors and are looking for a bundled package.
The offer appears to be perfect for anyone who accesses other OTT platforms, as this will
allow the user to have all the options and pay less compared to individual services.
As per the information available, Jio would be outsourcing all the content from different
content providers. As it would be a content aggregator, users can expect a wide variety and a
diversified combination of content available in various languages, genres, locations, etc. Jio,
as of now, has no plans for content creation, and for the time being, it will only provide
access to other’s content.
The offerings are relatively new in the market, so judging consumer perception would not be
possible now. We have to wait for some time before concluding. As per the initial
information, the reaction from the consumers is very encouraging as customers even have to
wait for their subscription. Free trial of the service has also created a positive outlook in the
minds of the customers who are looking for the services.

Way Forward for Jio

One of the biggest challenges that the OTT industry faces today is the sheer number of
choices that the consumer has. Each platform has its offerings, and the average consumer gets
confused and frustrated with all the options that are present. No single platform offers a
comprehensive set of content that can satisfy the content needs of the consumers. As
mentioned earlier, all the OTT platforms have been servicing their segments and niches, with
very few of them having offerings that can cover a broad spectrum of the consumer markets.
Every platform is acquiring expertise in serving a specific segment of the audience.

Eros Now offers very regional focussed content of the traditional kind that most of the Indian
population has been consuming for decades. The streaming quality, the content, the
subscription plans, the UI of the app, everything is of an average and standard quality with no
intention of being premium. Amazon Prime Video can be viewed as trying to offer
international standard content curated for the Indian consumers. It maintains an extensive
library of average and slightly above average content targeted towards a broader audience
and has been venturing into producing some original content for the Indian population and
prices significantly cheaper than the US market. Yet that still isn’t sufficient for satisfying the
needs of the consumers. Similarly, Netflix has been offering high definition international
standard content, and also introducing some original shows and movies to cater specifically
to the Indian market. Hotstar has established itself as the go-to platform for viewing sports
and has leveraged the massive content library of the Star TV network. Platforms like Voot
and ALT Balaji similarly have their offerings.

But in all of this, the consumers are faced with some severe dilemma. To enjoy all these
kinds of content on offer, they need to have access to all these different platforms. While an
average consumer might be willing to purchase the subscriptions for 2-3 platforms, it is not
feasible in terms of the spending required. Also, the time and efforts needed to maintain
multiple subscriptions for an extended time are simply too high, and it leads to significant
distress to the consumers.

This is the issue that Jio has been trying to resolve. It is acting as an aggregator by
collaborating with multiple platforms to build an extensive library of the most relevant and
in-demand content and offering them to the Indian audience via a single platform. This
reduces the hassle for the consumers and also boosts the business for the stakeholders
involved. Jio gets increasingly high subscribers, while its collaborators to get a more
significant share of the pie. These collaborators earn not only from their subscriber base but
also from the subscriber base brought to them by Jio. This base is otherwise not accessible to
the collaborators on their own. It adds significant value to them, not only in terms of revenue
but also in terms of added consumer insights into their consumption patterns and behaviors.
 Source: Disruptive innovations and the risk associated

The industry that Jo is catering is already well established and there’s no new market that
they are seeking out. It is the existing market of customers for whom Jio has launched its
services. The services themselves though, are quite new, and unlike the offerings of other
OTT platforms. Looking at the above matrix we can we can infer that Jio is bringing a
disruptive technology in the OTT industry by targeting the same segment of the customers as
its competitors, but it is changing the way that the consumers go about process of
consumption of the material. Instead of visiting different platforms to satisfy their different
entertainment needs, the consumers can satisfy their needs via the Jio TV app. Jio is
removing the need for buying different subscriptions, and is providing a one stop solution for
all the entertainment needs of the consumers.
 Source: Eager Sellers and Stony Buyers (article)

To evaluate how the offering performs in terms of the degree of innovation and behavioral
change required, we can use the innovation evaluation model introduced in the: Eager Sellers
and Stony Buyers. Based on the evaluation using those parameters, we find that Jio comes
out to be amongst the smash hits.
The platform provides significant value in terms of effort required to access the content and
also the costs associated with having multiple subscription. While Jio does provide these
benefits, the offerings make sure that the behavioral change for the consumers remains
minimal. The interface does not change, and neither does the viewing experience get
hampered in any way. Jio simply redirects the consumer to the platform that the content
belongs to, and the consumer doesn’t have to sweat it out much. This effectively ensures that
the average consumer doesn’t face any major hassle in adapting to this way of accessing and
viewing the content, but it still does add a very significant amount of value to him/her.

Exhibits
Exhibit 1: The growth in Online Content Consumption during the pandemic
Exhibit 2: Binge watching habits of OTT Users

Exhibit 3: OTT Landscape of India

Exhibit 4: Comparison of the Dominant OTT Platforms in India
Exhibit 5: Subscriber Base for Netflix

Exhibit 6: Fall of Mobile Data Price in India

Exhibit 7: Netflix’s Business Model

Exhibit 8: Market Shares of the Indian OTT Market

Exhibit 9: Pricing Models of the OTT Platforms

Exhibit 10: Market Share held by the OTT Platforms

Exhibit 11: Number of Subscribers for Major OTT Platforms

References
(1) https://inc42.com/buzz/binge-on-datalabs-indias-ott-market-landscape-report-2020/
(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over-the-top_media_service_in_India#cite_note-
exchange4media.com-3
(3) https://www.exchange4media.com/digital-news/video-ott-revenue-in-india-expected-to-
reach-rs-13-800-crore-by-fy-2023-92262.html
(4) https://www.theweek.in/leisure/lifestyle/2018/12/27/The-rise-and-rise-of-India-online-
streaming-services.html
(5) https://www.exchange4media.com/digital-news/average-indians-digital-video-consumption-
has-grown-2x-in-past-two-years-bcg-cii-report-100810.html