Seven Out of Ten Indian Internet Users Watch Online Video and Half of Them Use YouTube

By | June 8, 2011

According to the ComScore, in India, seven out of ten Internet users are watching online videos and half of them use YouTube. On an average, these users watch 58 videos for a total of 5 hours in a month and the number of viewers is nearly the same as in UK and Brazil. ComScore found that 30.2 million Indian Internet users watched online videos in the month of January 2011, which accounts for 72 percent of the total Internet using population in India. When the above number is compared with UK and Brazil, the population was 32 million and 34 million respectively.

Watching online videos is quickly becoming a central activity for Internet users in India, with the increase of broadband penetration and Internet penetration in the country. ComScore viewed that, if the online video watchers increase in India, the online market will become an important medium for marketers to reach audiences.

With an average of 1.7 viewing hours in a month, more than 23.5 million viewers (out of 32.2 million online video viewers) watched a total of 785 million videos on Google sites. YouTube accounted for 780.7 million videos, representing 44.5% of all videos viewed in India in January 2011. Facebook India ranked second with 6.6 million viewers who watched 30.1 million videos. And Metacafe is ranked 3rd with 3.9 million viewers. India based, Network 18 and rediff.com India reached 1.2 million and 8.61 million viewers respectively, which got them ranked in the top 10 largest video properties.

In spite of these high numbers, India showed lower online video reach and audience engagement when compared to other countries. More than 80% of the online visitors watched videos in US, Brazil, UK and Singapore, while video reached 71.8% of Indians online. Although there is low video penetration and audience engagement in India, experts say that lot of potential is there in this aggressively developing Indian online market to see continued growth.