VuClip study shows only 23% of Indians want to pay for videos

 14th January 2016    PR News 
 Paarul Chand

As compared to developed countries, fewer Indians want to pay to download video content, reveals, “The Global Video Insights”, report released by mobile video on demand service, VuClip.

Only 23% of Indian surveyed want to buy video content as compared to 52% in developed countries.

Most Indians also prefer free downloads from Torrent to other subscription services:

	India	Developed Nations
% of Downloaders	90%	58%

These  insights are based on an online survey of 4600 users across six developing (India, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, UAE and Philippines) and four developed (USA, UK, Singapore and Australia) markets.

Indians prefer offline video features, want freedom from buffering

According to the study, Indian viewers also prefer features that help them download videos (56%) and that give them the freedom to select video streaming quality (52%). YouTube already offers an offline feature that tried to remove the pain of slow Internet speeds in India.

23% of viewers in India view buffering as a key inhibitor to video consumption on smartphones. They  prefer OTT VOD services which deliver on providing them an unbuffered viewing experience.

Viewers across markets are also showing an increased preference to watch video content on smartphones with larger screen sizes. The majority of the mobile video viewing in developed markets takes place on smartphones in the five inches+ category. But in India, this happens on smaller devices, typically in the 4.6 -5 inches range.

Types of Video consumed

As per the study:

-91% viewers who participated in the survey indicated that in addition to live broadcast, they preferred the television for long form consumption such as films and videos with run time of more than ten minutes. Only 33% of smartphone users in India use the device to view such content.

-85% viewers in India consume short form video content (run time of under ten minutes) on smartphones as against 71% on laptops. User generated content (UGC) is consumed more on smartphones (28%) than on laptops (20%). 

-Freshness of content (65%) as well as variety in content catalogue considered most important by Indian viewers:

This is a challenge most streaming services will have to address. The recent launch of Netflix in India has seen criticism of its catalogue. The iconic “House of Cards” series is not available in India and there is limited local content.