The Indian OTT video market is expected to reach Rs 11,976 crore in 2023, growing at a CAGR of 21.8 percent, according to a report by PwC. “Our research shows that in the next five years India will see significant growth in over-the-top (OTT), online gaming and Internet advertising. Growth in these sub-sectors spurs from the growing trends around personalization and increased digitalization," said Rajib Basu, partner and leader – entertainment and media, PwC India, underscoring the momentum of media and entertainment market in India. 

Targeting Niche Segment   

Flipkart, an Indian e-commerce company devises a brand new strategy based on OTT to on-board new customers into the e-commerce. Adding fuel to the fire of OTT, Flipkart has recently announced its entry into online video streaming segment that is currently dominated by some of the big guns of the market such as Hotstar, Amazon, Netflix etc. Rolling out its free services in the name of ‘Flipkart Video Originals’ that will be integrated within Flipkart’s platform, the company said that it will produce bespoke snackable content that is both mobile-first and interactive, targeting the untapped niche segment of customers. “All the main players are primarily anchored around fictional content.  While other over-the-top (OTT) platforms are focused on metropolitan centres, Flipkart would look at Tier-II and –II cities,” said Prakash Sikaria, vice-president, growth and monetisation at Flipkart.        

Winning the OTT Battle with Free Services

With this move to foray into the OTT market, Flipkart now has to battle with its counterpart Amazon that launched its video services in December 2016, from both the ends - online streaming and e-commerce. Unlike Amazon and other players, Flipkart choose to offer video services for free and would rely on an ad-supported revenue model, to take on the counterparts who offer services on the paid-subscription model. Flipkart aims to bring the content in regional language to cater to the multi-lingual Indian society.      

The first original series from Flipkart, Backbenchers, a non-fiction show hosted by Farah Khan and featuring an array of India’s top celebrities is scheduled to premiere on October 19, 2019. Flipkart plans to work in future with renowned industry talent and production houses such as Studio Next, Frames and Sikhya Productions, to develop first-of-its-kind content across different genres and languages. With the launch of free video services, Flipkart intends to on-board new customers who are not necessarily new to the internet but are new to e-commerce, which is a primary source of income to the company.