India’s media, entertainment industry can be worth ₹4.30 lakh crore by 2026: Report

The Indian media and entertainment industry is likely to grow by 8.8% CAGR and reach a valuation of Rs. 4.30 lakh crore by 2026, according to a report by the global consultancy firm PwC.

The PwC's Global Entertainment & Media Outlook 2022-2026 states that the Indian media and entertainment industry is expected to be around ₹3.14 crore in 2022, registering an overall growth of 11.4%.

Further, TV advertising is expected to reach over ₹43,000 crore by 2026. It will make India the fifth-largest TV advertising market globally, after the US, Japan, China and the UK.

The report states that the overall growth of the media and entertainment industry would be led by digital media and advertising through deeper penetration of the internet and mobile devices in the domestic market.

India's OTT Video services are expected to become a ₹21,031 crore industry in the next four years by 2026, in which ₹19,973 crore would come from subscription-based services and ₹1,058 crore from Transactional VOD (video on demand).

"It is subscription services that are driving this rapid growth, accounting for 90.5% of revenue in 2021 and set to account for 95 per cent in 2026," it said.

The population size and widespread use of mobile-led Internet video will underpin rapid growth in the OTT market over the forecast period. In particular, uptake of 5G will permit low-latency services such as OTT video streams, greatly boosting the sector.

"As infrastructure improves in the long term, the scale and diversity of the population will lend itself to a wide range of platforms," the report said.

TV advertising would grow up to ₹43,568 crore in 2026 from ₹35,270 crore in 2022, registering a growth of 23.52%.

"After several years of rapid expansion, India’s TV advertising market was hit by the COVIDovid-19 recession in 2020, causing a 10.8% decline over the 2019 levels. This proved to be a temporary setback. With the country’s return to economic growth in 2021, this segment grew by 16.9% to ₹32,374 crore," it said. 

India's internet advertising market is set to increase at a 12.1% CAGR to reach ₹28,234 crore by 2026.

"Given India's mobile-first Internet access market, the mobile sector dominates the country's Internet advertising market, accounting for 60.1% of total revenue in 2021, rising to 69.3% by 2026," the report said, adding that "display advertising dominates the mobile sector, accounting for 90.7% of revenue in 2021 though its share will fall to 88.9% of the total in 2026".

Newspaper industry 

India will see an increase in total newspaper revenue at a 2.7% CAGR from ₹26,378 crore in 2021 to ₹29,945 crore in 2026.

"India, which will leapfrog both France and the UK to become the fifth-biggest newspaper market by 2026, will also be the only country to grow total newspaper print revenue consistently across the five-year forecast period. India will also be the only country in the world to grow daily print newspaper copy sales (by volume) during the forecast period," the PwC report said.

The increase at a 1.3 per CAGR - to an average of 139 million daily average print newspaper sales in 2026, one-third of the global daily total – will mean that India will overtake China as the biggest world market for print edition readership in 2025.

PwC India Partner and Leader – Entertainment & Media - Rajib Basu said the outlook for the industry for the next few years is quite unique.

"There is an exciting pace of growth of digital media and advertising led by the deeper penetration of internet and mobile devices in our market. At the same time, traditional media will hold their steady growth rate over the next few years. We shall see a very different profile of media and entertainment-related businesses and revenue models emerging in the digital space once we have the rollout of 5G," he noted.

Cinema industry

The Indian cinema industry is expected to garner a revenue of around ₹16,198 crore by 2026, of which ₹15,849 would be Box office revenue and the rest ₹349 crore from advertising, the report added.

"India is the third-biggest market globally in terms of admissions after China and the US in 2021 and is set to grow at the highest growth rate amongst all the segments at a staggering 38.3% CAGR in the forecast period to reach ₹16,198 crore by 2026.

"In 2021, more than 379 million cinema tickets were sold in India, a healthy increase year-on-year on the 278 million admissions in 2020 (and higher than the 226 million admissions in the US in 2020) though that had been a huge (85.4 per cent) drop compared to the 1.9 billion tickets sold pre-pandemic," it said.

Music, Radio & Podcast

The 'Music, Radio & Podcast' segment grew by 18% in 2021 to ₹7,216 crore and is set to rise 9.8 per cent CAGR to reach ₹11,536 crore by 2026.

"India's Recorded Music industry (which is a key sub-segment) is making steady progress at a CAGR of 13.6%, thanks to streaming models," it said.

India's Video games and esports revenue is estimated to reach ₹37,535 crore by 2026, increasing at an 18.3% CAGR.

"While still a fairly small market for the country’s size and population, India is the third fastest-growing video games market in the world, after Turkey and Pakistan. India's video games market is predominantly geared towards social/casual gaming. With revenue of ₹13,244 crore, social/casual gaming made up 83.9% of India's total video games and esports revenue in 2021," the PwC report said.

With inputs from agencies.