Study shows 69% of OTT platform subscribers in India frustrated with several options for entertainment

With the OTT boom and splash of several contents across the platforms, viewers in India are now struggling to decide what to watch. A study by Accenture shows that close to 70 per cent of Indians are frustrated with the overload of content on the apps on their phones and other devices. They struggle to find the right content that they'd like to consume across platforms like Netflix, Disney+ Hotstar, and Amazon Prime Video. 

According to the survey, more than 60% of subscribers of OTT platforms in India believe that they are paying more for the contents that are irrelevant to them, as they have a lot of options to watch. Eight one per cent of the respondents of the survey also said they wish to share their profiles with other services for better personalised content. Users have said they spend over six minutes navigating these OTT platforms to find what they would like to watch. They find that process “a little” to “very” frustrating. The report shows that 22 per cent of consumers worldwide use four or more services and 33 per cent use just one.

It further stated that consumers expect OTT platforms to raise their subscription fees. One in every seven people who participated in the survey said so. But 33 per cent of consumers across the globe are planning to cut down their expenditure on these OTT subscriptions in the coming year. In India, the users who plan to cut down the expense constitute 46 per cent. Indians were the largest group to say that they were spending too much on entertainment. The study states, "The monthly payments for more services are a growing problem. In fact, many consumers are approaching their upper limit on the amount of money they’ll spend for streaming services."    

In 2021, India had reportedly 70-80 million paid subscribers. They subscribed to OTT platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+Hotstar, SonyLIV, and Voot. And, Disney+Hotstar has maximum users with over 40 million subscribers. In December last year, Netflix had cut down its basic subscription fee by 50 per cent. The plan that allowed up to two devices was costing one Rs 649 and now, it's reduced to Ts 499. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings had earlier said, "The great news is in every single other major market, we’ve got the flywheel spinning. The thing that frustrates us is why we haven’t been as successful in India. But we’re definitely leaning in there."