India has witnessed a dynamic growth in access to the internet- both in urban and rural areas. The country ranks second in the world of digital population with a projected number of internet users of 1.134 billion by 2025. The 4G user base in India is also estimated to increase from 600 million in 2019 to 900 Million by 2022 across Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. The major factors accounting to this exponential growth are cheap data, affordable smartphones and pandemic. While the pandemic had been a challenge for the whole world, it also paved the way for the technology boom.
Innovation in content
The stay at home measures during the pandemic has churned the home entertainment industry in a big revolution. With movie theaters and live entertainment largely shut down and travel and dining options limited, consumers found entertainment close to home. In the new world, the screens have become the window to the world and they have moved from being one for all earlier to one for each now. Over the last few years, screen-based entertainment has evolved beyond TV and movies. Streamers and studios are challenged to attract and retain younger generations who have grown up with smartphones, social media, and video games, which deliver unmatched experiences that are social, interactive, and immersive. The new age social media now delivers finely tuned and personalized feeds of images, video, podcast, music, news, gaming, and shoppable media to billions of users. Then comes the era of engagement driven live streaming. After Amazon’s acquisition of the market-leading social live streaming services, Twitch for $970 million in 2014, the rise of user-generated live streaming has continued with the advent of mobile live streaming applications. With its success, the specialized social live streaming has been introduced to incumbent social media platforms, such as YouTube and Facebook. Even though social media focus on users’ shared experiences, the experiential aspects of social media have received little attention.
The relevance of shared experiences is particularly true for social live streaming services, which were found to exhibit higher levels of social interaction than traditional on-demand social media services such as YouTube.
Talking about diversified content in semi urban and rural India, regional content curated and consumed by natives contributed a great deal to the adoption of digital in these areas. Digital content consumption is expected to double, with over a billion of the population having a smartphone by the next decade. It is worth noting that, the Indian content industry stood at a towering $19 billion valuation in 2020 and is expected to reach $30.6 billion by 2023, all thanks to the pan-India digital adoption and internet penetration.
Live Streaming: The changing face for social media
The social media landscape has evolved significantly over the last decade, as new social media apps have entered the market and existing stalwarts have implemented new features to keep people connected and engaged. Video Live Streaming has been a global revolution in the form of new social media that has empowered content creators to monetise their content directly through their engaged fans. In India, while everyone had been talking about short videos post the ban on Chinese applications and how brand partnerships and shopping affiliate revenue for creator monetisation; very few focused on amalgamation of video live streaming, gamification consumer transactions as the mode to democratize monetisation for content creators in India.
India is still to see the explosive growth of video live streaming, but the leaders in the space have started to emerge with strong growth not only in active user base, but also in paying user base and thus the monetisation volume for content creators.
A rise in consumer spend
India’s demographic dividend has the purchasing power and the mindset to select quality over price. People are ready to pay today, but they want to pay for what excites them in the form of engagement with the content, and not just passive consumption.
The new India has a potential of 55-60 million users spending on content led by active engagement with creators and gamification elements. Live streaming apps in India today have emerged as a platform that empowers users to upgrade their lifestyle through earnings on the platform solely through Clean Content, and with the domination of Tier 2/3 cities users who are not just viewing but transacting on the platform in high volumes. The crux of this trend is content creators, as viewers purchase in-app gifts to support their favorite streamers. The ability of social media users to communicate with each other using live video — or watch others’ live broadcasts — has not only maintained the growth of a social media app market, but contributed to its exponential growth in engagement metrics like time spent, that might otherwise have saturated some time ago.
According to a report by App Annie titled ‘The Evolution of Social Media Apps’ consumers will spend $6.78 billion via social live streaming apps– rising to $17.2 billion annually by 2025. This spike is a result of viewers doing in-app purchase of gifts to support their favorite streamers. Globally, in the first quarter of 2022, Bigo Live was the highest-grossing mobile live streaming app, as it generated nearly 82 million U.S. dollars in consumer spending in the measured period. Followed by Twitch with approximately 73 million U.S. dollars.
The way forward
Social media services have become increasingly dynamic spaces. For many consumers, these services have offered essential ways to connect, gather information, and stay entertained. Furthermore, consumers are shifting to a model of paying for content creators instead of professionally produced content, signifying the hunt for authentic experiences. It is worth noting that users today want to spend on friends, connections and creativity via in-app purchases. The user experience and interactions with live streamers is central to the value users are deriving from the growing live streaming platforms. The key to this monetization strategy is in fact the creator economy with users compensating creators for their work.
— By Varun Saxena, CEO and founder, Bolo Live
Innovation in content
The stay at home measures during the pandemic has churned the home entertainment industry in a big revolution. With movie theaters and live entertainment largely shut down and travel and dining options limited, consumers found entertainment close to home. In the new world, the screens have become the window to the world and they have moved from being one for all earlier to one for each now. Over the last few years, screen-based entertainment has evolved beyond TV and movies. Streamers and studios are challenged to attract and retain younger generations who have grown up with smartphones, social media, and video games, which deliver unmatched experiences that are social, interactive, and immersive. The new age social media now delivers finely tuned and personalized feeds of images, video, podcast, music, news, gaming, and shoppable media to billions of users. Then comes the era of engagement driven live streaming. After Amazon’s acquisition of the market-leading social live streaming services, Twitch for $970 million in 2014, the rise of user-generated live streaming has continued with the advent of mobile live streaming applications. With its success, the specialized social live streaming has been introduced to incumbent social media platforms, such as YouTube and Facebook. Even though social media focus on users’ shared experiences, the experiential aspects of social media have received little attention.
The relevance of shared experiences is particularly true for social live streaming services, which were found to exhibit higher levels of social interaction than traditional on-demand social media services such as YouTube.
Talking about diversified content in semi urban and rural India, regional content curated and consumed by natives contributed a great deal to the adoption of digital in these areas. Digital content consumption is expected to double, with over a billion of the population having a smartphone by the next decade. It is worth noting that, the Indian content industry stood at a towering $19 billion valuation in 2020 and is expected to reach $30.6 billion by 2023, all thanks to the pan-India digital adoption and internet penetration.
Live Streaming: The changing face for social media
The social media landscape has evolved significantly over the last decade, as new social media apps have entered the market and existing stalwarts have implemented new features to keep people connected and engaged. Video Live Streaming has been a global revolution in the form of new social media that has empowered content creators to monetise their content directly through their engaged fans. In India, while everyone had been talking about short videos post the ban on Chinese applications and how brand partnerships and shopping affiliate revenue for creator monetisation; very few focused on amalgamation of video live streaming, gamification consumer transactions as the mode to democratize monetisation for content creators in India.
India is still to see the explosive growth of video live streaming, but the leaders in the space have started to emerge with strong growth not only in active user base, but also in paying user base and thus the monetisation volume for content creators.
A rise in consumer spend
India’s demographic dividend has the purchasing power and the mindset to select quality over price. People are ready to pay today, but they want to pay for what excites them in the form of engagement with the content, and not just passive consumption.
The new India has a potential of 55-60 million users spending on content led by active engagement with creators and gamification elements. Live streaming apps in India today have emerged as a platform that empowers users to upgrade their lifestyle through earnings on the platform solely through Clean Content, and with the domination of Tier 2/3 cities users who are not just viewing but transacting on the platform in high volumes. The crux of this trend is content creators, as viewers purchase in-app gifts to support their favorite streamers. The ability of social media users to communicate with each other using live video — or watch others’ live broadcasts — has not only maintained the growth of a social media app market, but contributed to its exponential growth in engagement metrics like time spent, that might otherwise have saturated some time ago.
According to a report by App Annie titled ‘The Evolution of Social Media Apps’ consumers will spend $6.78 billion via social live streaming apps– rising to $17.2 billion annually by 2025. This spike is a result of viewers doing in-app purchase of gifts to support their favorite streamers. Globally, in the first quarter of 2022, Bigo Live was the highest-grossing mobile live streaming app, as it generated nearly 82 million U.S. dollars in consumer spending in the measured period. Followed by Twitch with approximately 73 million U.S. dollars.
The way forward
Social media services have become increasingly dynamic spaces. For many consumers, these services have offered essential ways to connect, gather information, and stay entertained. Furthermore, consumers are shifting to a model of paying for content creators instead of professionally produced content, signifying the hunt for authentic experiences. It is worth noting that users today want to spend on friends, connections and creativity via in-app purchases. The user experience and interactions with live streamers is central to the value users are deriving from the growing live streaming platforms. The key to this monetization strategy is in fact the creator economy with users compensating creators for their work.
— By Varun Saxena, CEO and founder, Bolo Live
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