KOLKATA: The rapid surge of OTT consumption in India is not anymore limited to free usage. A recent report has underlined that the subscription-based model is holding a potential future. India will reach 66 million paid subscribers in 2025, analyst firm Digital TV Research estimates.

While the Indian market is estimated to triple its subscriber base in 2019, the entire APAC region will also see a substantial increase. The region will have 467 million SVoD subscriptions by 2025, up from 267 million in 2019.

China will remain the largest contributor at 2025 too with 279 million subscribers. Japan will add 18 million subscribers to reach 40 million. Among other markets, South Korea will exceed 25 million and Australia will surpass the 18 million mark slightly.

“Although China dominates the region, there will be plenty of growth elsewhere. Netflix will have 44.4 million subscribers by 2025; closely followed by Disney+ [including Hotstar] with 43.6 million,” Digital TV Research principal analyst Simon Murray said.

This is not the only report which is indicating a huge subscriber growth in the next decade. To capture the opportunity, all the international players are ramping up their investment in premium content while local players are also rising to prominence on the back of consumer insights.