40% of TikTok's India market captured by homegrown apps: Redseer report

Every second person in India uses the Internet, and of this population, 45% used short-form videos, which has emerged as the fastest growing content category according to the latest report by consulting firm RedSeer. Titled ‘Short-form: Rising Amidst Cluttered Content Space," the report underlines that India has the highest content consumption per user. Indian users spend roughly 5 hours a day on their smartphones, followed by Chinese, with 4.5 hours a day.

"Content consumption in India is growing faster than global growth,” says Ujjwal Chaudhury, associate partner at RedSeer Consulting. Users in India, he adds, need free and bite-sized entertainment, which is not offered by OTT platforms. OTT, he underlines, needs a high attention span and is focused on diverse genres such as drama and sports. “A wide gap exists between free and paid OTT users implying need for low-cost entertainment. All these indicate a strong need-gap for short-form," he says.

With the number of internet users in India set to grow from 600 million to 970 million over the next five years, the short-form market is also estimated to grow by 4x on total time spent and reach to 400-450 billion minutes a month from the current 110 billion minutes. “After the ban on TikTok, Indian players like Josh, Roposo, MX and Takatak have grown multifold, and we have seen a resurgence in the sector,” points out Chaudhury.

The monthly average users (MAU) for short-form content grew 9x in less than five years: from 20 million in 2016 to 180 million in 2020. While 40% of TikTok’s market has been captured by the new players, some users are still unwilling to shift for lack of quality, and lesser velocity of content creation, adds Chaudhury. 

Watch highlights from this report here: 

Video by Naini Thaker