Short-form video apps to clock 650 monthly active users by 2025: RedSeer

NEW DELHI: The short-video category is set to become the second biggest segment in terms of time spent, after internet giants such as Facebook and Google, as per consulting firm RedSeer.

Monthly active users (MAUs) of the segment are expected to grow more than twice to reach 650 million users by calendar year 2025, securing the second spot after television. The growth will be largely driven by the new 300 million internet users that will be added by 2025.

The report also said that short-form content has been a winner and is likely to overtake over-the-top (OTT) video content in coming years in terms of time spent.

RedSeer found that the content creators on these short-form video platforms have also grown more than twice since June 2020, when Bytedance owned platform TikTok was banned in India. Currently at 40-45 million, these creators mostly hail from smaller towns and cities. Indian short-form apps have surged ahead in terms of creator experience, leading to an increase in user base and engagement on these platforms. Monthly average users are 1.2 times compared to before TikTok was banned, while time spent on the apps is about 0.4 times higher now.

Most of the platforms have ensured stringent content compliance standards (over 95%) and monetisation opportunities.

RedSeer said after the TikTok ban in June 2020, Indian short-form apps have improved on personalisation, real-time feed change, feed change by language, follower base and feed change by search.

The report also highlighted that digital ad market is expected to grow about 10 times in the next 10 years. Indian short-form sector can potentially take up to 20% of the digital ad market share.

Major growth drivers for this segment include increasing digital consumption (shift in time spent), rise of direct-to-consumer (D2C) or challenger brands and digital penetration in tier II cities creating new market and opportunities.

India is still at a nascent stage in terms of monetisation on short-form apps but is showing early adoption.

Ujjwal Chadhury, associate partner at RedSeer said, “We are reaching an inflexion point for digital ads journey in India. The market is set to grow exponentially over the next decade and some of the new age content platforms are best positioned to capture this growth.”