India Ranks Second Globally in Terms of Youtube Video Uploads

India is the land of unequaled opportunity when it comes to content and entertainment. Within six months of the India launch of the Youtube partner programme, where television channels and other content owners are invited to upload their content on the site, the country now ranks second globally in terms video uploads. Youtube picked up on this and made sure that they served well to Indians’ love for entertainment. Youtube caters many Indian soaps and Bollywood movies, streams IPL and WSH matches along with the user generated content.Youtube’s Global Director for Content Operations, Tom Pickett, in his recent interview with Economic Times spoke about Youtube’s India plans. He mainly focussed on the fact that India is a unique market, considerably different from the rest with each move being reacted to distinctly. Mr Pickett reassured that most of the content on Youtube would remain free, as opposed to pay-per-view introduced in USA and UK markets. Profitability and success of such a move is debatable as Indians in general, are not known to spend much on Internet shows and content as opposed to specific niche of young Internet adopters. So, for the time being, it seems that the ad-supported model is working fine for the country and both, the content providers and the viewers, have no issues with the manner in which the content is distributed.

As all the monetization models are based on how Content Providers want to channelize it in the market, Youtube is not averse to trying out new models as they are willing to go for it. Other than revenue models, Mr Pickett also spoke about how the net population has grown by 20 million more users in the last two quarters, something which eventually makes the total of Internet ready Indians to 120 million and this happened over a considerably short span of time. Such developments have always promised further developments for the sector.

Indians are the second highest uploaders in the world and the highest uploaders and viewers of User Generated Content in Asia. India is also considerably large when it comes to amount of content uploaded by partners and the equivalent revenue generated by them. Bandwidth and connectivity are still major issues in India but the penetration is increasing at good a rate. The wait is for the innovations the Google guys can come up with to make the best of the current scenario and at the same time improvize on the Indian video-viewing experience. All this gives a very strong indication as to where we’re moving in terms what the consumer is lapping up to and the kind of content that works on a broader scale.

- Shyamal Dave