Windows of opportunity: India’s M&E sector maximizing across segments

M&E sector showed no signs of slowing down and instead continued to experience substantial growth in 2022. 

The Indian media and entertainment (M&E) consumer base is large but heterogenous, hungry for content but willing to pay only for value, and more than ready to experiment with technology, be it streaming, digital payments, online education, virtual experiences, e-commerce, social media, or gaming. 

The diverse consumer base, coupled with favorable macroeconomic and demographic factors, has translated into a very exciting time for the industry. India’s M&E sector achieved its highest ever revenues in 2022. Almost every single segment grew across both traditional and new media. Media consumption increased across video, audio, text, and experiences. Advertising grew 19% and crossed INR1 trillion, while subscriptions grew by 13%.

Each consumer segment of the M&E industry presents a window of opportunity — to produce relevant content, distribute it, price it and interact with it. Successful companies in this space were willing and able to segment their audience and serve every segment the way they want. Pricing innovations can traverse free trials to premium windows; product innovation from textual to 4K and then immersive; experiences from casual mobile games to hardcore VR games; cinemas from “Janta” theaters to ritzy multiplexes, and much more! 

The era of walled gardens and consumption restrictions is ending; make way for the multi-media-multi-window era! This report focuses on the various audience segments and the variety of opportunities they provide for the M&E sector to continue growing.