Multi-Category Growth Of Digital Media
Over the last three years and continuing into the near future, India has been the undisputed leader in M&E growth, in percentage terms, in the world.
This growth has been underpinned by two significant developments. First, the slowing down of traditional M&E segments like television, print and radio and the accelerated growth of digital M&E including digital video, digital music and gaming and second, a rapidly transforming digital ecosystem including the availability of affordable smartphones, fast increasing broadband availability and penetration, falling data prices and accelerating network speeds.
As per capita spends on M&E in India still remain low compared to the developed world, we, at Hungama, expect this growth surge to continue, with digital M&E growth outperforming all other sectors.
The Market Is Still Nascent
The shift to digital media is at its early stages and will result in significant avenues of growth. Among the key factors are the increasing democratisation of the internet-the shift of growth away from metros to tier 2 and 3 cities, the growing balance between male and female consumption and the prevalence of digital use among older age groups, not just the young. This democratisation is leading to an increase in the number of digital services, the expansion of subscription versus ad-supported commercial models and the growth of original content, all targeted and differentiated by socio-economic, geographical, cultural and linguistic factors
This in turn is expanding the use of digital media in advertising, initially driven by social media platforms and search and then by the 40+ video streaming platforms that have been launched in the past few years.
As Indian content matures on digital platforms there is also a rapidly growing opportunity to target and distribute content to international markets, to first serve the diaspora and then international communities interested in Indian content, through subtitled and dubbed product
Non-Media Relationships
Overall digital disruption is creating and fomenting change across a wide span of activities. Some significant digital categories that have been created include shopping, services/rentals, groceries, news, food delivery, commuting, vacation rentals etc. Each of these categories has been successful in creating large communities of consumers and are now looking at added layers of digital entertainment, whether video, music or gaming, to make their products stickier and be more successful in retaining customers. This is leading to a developing relationship between non-entertainment and entertainment businesses. Digital entertainment businesses that have compelling, unique, differentiated products will have many takers for partnerships.
Hungama’s Focus
The growth of digital media is multi-category-- original video, music, games, social media, branded content etc. Each of these genres provides differentiated and unique opportunities for growth and with the entry of multiple players also opportunities for partnerships.
Our model is built on three category pillars- video, music and gaming. In each of these categories, we acquire content from the market as well as create original content to create a differentiated and unique offering. We partner with other platforms to expand distribution and we have been aggressively pursuing international distribution and expansion.
With increasing categories comes increasing complexity for the consumer. We believe that the future will create opportunities for digital media super-apps/platforms that combine, video, music, gaming into one integrated consumer experience greatly simplifying and enhancing the experience. With over 40+ video platforms, 8 music platforms and dozens of gaming platforms the consumer will find it increasingly difficult to navigate the various offers in the market unless consolidation occurs.
We are already pioneers in introducing gamification into our services- no matter which Hungama service a customer uses he/she can earn rewards for usage that translate into complimentary digital /physical goods and services.
