Indian Media Industry Projected To Cross $34 Billion By 2020, Report Says

Despite economic headwinds, caused by both local and global factors, India’s media and entertainment (M&E) sector grew by 12.8 percent in 2015, amounting to 1.157 trillion rupees ($17.45 billion), up from 1.026 trillion rupees in 2014, according to a report released Wednesday by KPMG and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry. The report also forecast the sector to see a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14.3 percent for the next five years, with revenues of over 2.26 trillion rupees by 2020.

Called “The Future: now streaming,” the report also projected advertising revenues to grow at CAGR of 15.9 percent, led by digital advertising, which is expected to grow annually at 33.5 percent. Driven by increasing usage of mobile phones and improved digital infrastructure, digital advertising is expected to account for over a quarter of overall advertising by 2020, which is forecast to be worth almost 1 trillion rupees by that time.

Traditional media are not expected to do badly, however. Television revenues, which grew by 14.2 percent in 2015 and amounted to 542.2 billion rupees, are projected to grow at a faster rate of 15.1 percent over the next five years and rake up almost 1.1 trillion rupees.

Print media, the next biggest sub-sector after television, grew at 7.6 percent in 2015 and is expected to maintain its growth rate at a similar pace of 7.8 percent over the next five years. Its 2020 revenue forecast stands at about 410 billion rupees.

Revenues from films are expected to come in at 227.3 billion rupees in 2020, growing at a CAGR of 10.5 percent. The sub-sector is forecast to get a boost from increasing acceptance of Hollywood and regional language content, in addition to the Hindi fare dished out by Bollywood. In 2015, revenues from films grew by 9.3 percent over the previous year and amounted to about 138 billion rupees.

Radio is expected to outshine television in terms of growth, however. The sub-sector, while much smaller in size than other traditional media, grew at 15.3 percent last year, and is expected to grow at 16.9 percent annually until 2020, when it is projected to have revenues of about 43 billion rupees.

“The Indian M&E industry has witnessed tremendous growth in the last few years and the growth momentum is expected to continue,” the report concludes.

However, it also warns of “certain tax and regulatory issues” that the Indian government needs to address.

Some key findings of the report can be seen here.