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India's second largest carrier expects revenue upside from the partnerships as well as from distribution. However, major OTT apps Netflix, Disney Hotstar and Amazon Prime will continue to be in standalone partnerships with Airtel<\/a> which will be separate monetisation streams for the company.
“50% of the global mobile traffic is video…that’s a substantial change in the last 5 years.Video has literally become the language of the internet and India is no different. The consumption has gone up,” Nair said, adding that a major growth will come from regional markets and it is going to be disproportionately in the non-English speaking population.
According to Media Partners Asia, by 2025, India’s OTT subscription market is expected to grow to $2 billion from the current $500 million. This will be led by 3X growth in subscriptions to around 165 million up from 45-70 million currently.
“A large proportion of these new subscriptions will come from new users from tier 2\/3 markets. Paid video subscriptions will grow six times to 90 million over the next five years. The growth for us and the industry<\/a> will come from the far corners,” Adarsh said.
The company has roped in around 15 regional and national content providers and is aiming to on-board more such companies.
Nair said that a number of high quality content houses have launched their OTT apps to tap into this opportunity, but are facing pricing and distribution challenges, thereby the Xtream distribution model will help them get new subscribers and to also solve the problem of “fragmented content” in the market.