The sachetisation of video watching: Tech companies snap up market

Parvati Nair debuted in the 2012 Malayalam film Poppins. The 28-year-old has gone on to work in almost two dozen films in various South Indian languages and done a host of modelling assignments. During the lockdown last year, Nair signed onto Dailyhunt’s short-video application (app) Josh “to put out things that reflect me, to reach out to fans”. She reached 3.5 million or under 10 per cent of Josh’s claimed 40 million daily active users.

As some of India’s largest technology (tech) and media firms pour millions of dollars into short-video apps, it is a great time for anyone wanting to reach their audience, showcase a talent, crack a joke, share some local news or simply strike a pose. MX Player’s TakaTak, Zee5’s HiPi, ShareChat’s Moj, (Facebook’s) Instagram Reels, and Inshorts’ Public are among the two dozen apps fighting for attention from 468 million Indians who consume news and entertainment online, said Comscore.

“Josh is an entertainment app for Bharat. Over-the-top (OTT) works on anchor pieces of content. Short video is snacky, relevant, and local,” says Virendra Gupta, founder, Dailyhunt, a part of VerSe Innovation.

“Lots of new creators and new music is breaking on Reels,” says Manish Chopra, director and head of partnerships, Facebook. “By 2021-22, Star, Sony, and Viacom18 will also launch short-video apps and bundle these with their OTTs. Large broadcasters have their own stars, and short-video apps are great for bonding, for cementing their (OTT/broadcasters) relationship with their characters,” says Constantinos Papavassilopoulos, associate director, consumer research at UK-based Omdia.

“Short video expands the time spent. It is a bit like the sachetisation shampoos did. In OTT, I demand 30-90 minutes of you. The average short video is 15-20 seconds,” says Karan Bedi chief executive officer (CEO), MX Player.

Papavassilopoulos reckons that from $900 million in 2020, advertisers are expected to spend $2 billion in 2025 on video-on-demand in India. Over half of that goes to YouTube. The rest goes to news, entertainment or other videos. It is a slice of this pie that all the action around short video is about.

The wake-up call from TikTok

“We have not taken as big a bet as Josh. We did it because of TikTok’s withdrawal,” says Gupta. A Chinese app with 159 million unique visitors, TikTok was banned by the Indian government on June 29 last year. Two days later on July 1, came ShareChat’s  Moj. Except for Public, Chingari, and Trell, all apps came after the TikTok ban.

How did they launch so fast? That is the first question this boom raises.

“We had the tools and knowledge because we were running ShareChat for five years,” says Berges Y Malu, director, ShareChat. Almost everyone echoes that.

“The ban on TikTok is an important element, but it is unfair to say growth happened only because of this. The Indian OTT market has the capability, expertise, and a strong interconnected professional workforce (because of its tech, film, television, and the OTT industry) that knows how to benefit from this,” says Papavassilopoulos.

This throws up the second question. Why not launch earlier? “Video is a very expensive space. It made sense to focus on the profitable growth of Dailyhunt,” adds Umang Bedi, co-founder, Dailyhunt.

One estimate puts the capital needed to get a short video operation up and running from $100,000 to $5 million and more. “In short video, tech is very important. The load time should, ideally, not be over 1 second. If it hits 3 seconds, the bounce rate (people dropping out) is 30-40 per cent. Therefore, you need fast video delivery plus building the persona of the user (using machine learning) simultaneously,” says Vinit Mehta, business director, India, Brightcove.

To this, add a host of other costs like licensing music for creators’ use in videos. “We provide 1.8 million songs within the app. This pre-empts copyright issues,” says Malu. That brings this to the third question about the boom. What are people creating and watching? “Largely dancing, comedy,” reckons Malu. He points to the one thing that differentiates short video from drama-oriented OTT — the language spread. “Moj does well in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Bangla, and Punjabi. It is increasing in Hindi,” says Malu.  Many of the big apps agree. “Josh is like the mahagathbandhan of top 200 creators, top 10 music labels,” laughs Bedi of Dailyhunt. “It is about craft, cooking, dance schools, steps by choreographers, what is happening in the city,” he adds. Chopra points to a new trend — creating episodic content on Instagram’s Reels.

Most apps except for Public do what YouTube does — offer an open, easy-to-operate, online auditorium where anyone can showcase their talent or the videos.

If and when they start making money, most would move to a revenue share.  The sachetisation of video watching is on its way.

The long & short of Inshorts
 
A local fight in Baghpat (Haryana), a water shortage in Boipariguda (Odisha) or a gram panchayat meeting in Vatakara (Kerala). That is the kind of stuff that gets news aggregator Inshorts’ short video app, Public, its 27-million unique visitors. They watch an average of 20-30-odd minutes of videos in eight languages.
 
Unlike TakaTak, Moj or the others, Public is a news app. “Our content goes where Twitter does not,” says Azhar Iqubal, co-founder and CEO, Inshorts.
 
Public’s 50,000-plus creators include ward members, MPs, MLAs, and anyone with on-ground news to share from villages and small towns across India.  Iqubal points out that India has over 700-plus districts; even 100 creators in each could take the total to 70,000.