Covid-19 to help OTT audio platforms increase revenue

Bengaluru, March 27 With most of the people now staying at home due to the nationwide lockdown currently in force to counter the spread of Covid-19, the over-the-top (OTT) audio platforms may see rise in their revenues, a report said on Friday.

To become profitable, OTT audio platforms will need to increase the proportion of paid subscribers to about six per cent of total users in future, said the report from management consulting firm RedSeer.

OTT audio platforms in India are typically operating on three monetisation models.

Currently, ad-based model and bundled model are the major source of revenue for OTT audio players. However, there is increasing focus on subscription-based model for better monetisation.

Currently, subscription-based users constitute only 1 per cent of total user base and majority of revenue is driven by in-app advertisement.

However, average revenue from subscription/user is almost 80x that of revenue from advertisement per users.

Therefore, players are focusing on increasing their subscription user base to achieve profitability, RedSeer said, adding that the current covid-19 scenario is expected to lead to a massive spike in usage of these platforms which will also likely give a strong one-time boost to subscriber addition as well.

For increasing percentage of paid subscribers and differentiating from rivals, players are focusing on originals content.

In India, most users are likely to switch to a paid OTT audio subscription, only if the charges are approximately Rs 25 per month, said the report, adding that 62 per cent of the consumer surveyed are willing to switch to paid subscription model.

Besides originals, there is a possibility for OTT audio platforms to tap into other sources of revenue including selling merchandise or tickets via their platforms.