Creators are the media studios of the future: YouTube India MD Gunjan Soni

With ₹14,300 crore in revenue and 455 million users, YouTube has become one of India's biggest media platforms, spanning TV, creators, commerce, and AI-led growth

With revenues of ₹14,300 crore in India in 2024, Google’s YouTube is at the same time a broadcaster, publisher, podcaster, music company, influencer hub, streaming app, and directory. It is also one of India’s largest media companies with 455 million unique users in October (Comscore). Country Managing Director Gunjan Soni speaks to Vanita Kohli-Khandekar in Mumbai on the parallel media ecosystem YouTube represents. Edited excerpts

 

Where is YouTube placed in India now? And where is India placed in its global map?

 

India is one of the most strategic markets not just for entertainment but also for knowledge in the creative economy. We partner Oxford Economics to look at our economic contribution. We contributed ₹16,000 crore to gross domestic product last year, and nearly a million (930,000) full-time equivalent jobs.

 

What does this ₹16,000 crore represent?

 

This covers the payouts to either creators or media companies and the value of economic activities generated as a result. Creators have become entrepreneurs in their own right. They are the media studios of the future. That continues to remain the heart of our story.

 

What is the strategic interest as far as India goes? Is it a source of ideas, content, and manpower?

 

India is a large market. That itself creates strategic importance. But it has become a big source of export. Over 15 per cent of watch time on content produced by channels in India comes from outside India (December 2024). It is our soft power. Indian creators are fast in adopting newer technologies. A lot of global features we launch are adopted fast. This contributes to the strategic importance. That is why Neal (Neal Mohan, chief executive officer, YouTube) announced we would invest ₹850 crore over the next two years in the Indian market.

 

What will this be invested in?

 

Technology in building the creator ecosystem further.

 

You said 15 per cent of the consumption of content created in India is outside India. Is this T-series (the biggest channel on YouTube globally)?

 

No, this is everything, including creator-driven content. For instance, there are yoga and wellness creators Anita Bokepalli and Saurabh Bothra; cricketer Akash Chopra; or chef Ranveer Brar, among many others.

 

YouTube has been referred to as the television of today. How big is CTV (connected TV) in the consumption pie for YouTube and what does it mean for you?

 

Nearly 75 million people more than 18 are consuming YouTube over a connected TV in their living room. That scale is new to the industry. We are bringing to the people a ubiquitous platform that is screen- and format-agnostic. People are watching 60-second shorts. We have cracked the formula of winning on the short format on the large screen, which is unheard of. And you can consume full-length movies. What we are doing with movie distribution is another example of deepening that work. And then you have podcasts, music or the lovely shows that the creators are putting together. This, to me, is at the heart of our proposition and why we are the new TV.

 

As regards people watching YouTube on CTV, what are they consuming?

 

Podcast, short form, a lot of travel content. For instance, Visa2Explore has started making its content now, specifically for Sundays, because it knows that people are looking for travel content with their families to plan vacations. It is almost appointment viewing. [Creators Kusha Kapila (Vyarth) and Ashish Chanchlani (Ekaki) have used YouTube as a launchpad for their films.]

 

YouTube has camaraderie with media companies and is also in conflict with them because of competition. What do the CTV gains mean for your relations within the ecosystem and for you as a media platform?

 

We view ourselves almost as an indispensable collaborative partner to the Indian media and entertainment industry. We believe that our long-term success is linked to the industry’s success. Our approach has always been “how we expand the pie for everyone”. For many years YouTube has always been the best platform to build fandom — for example, when you are releasing a movie trailer. The opportunity presents itself more strongly with CTV. As a nation we create beautiful content and a high volume of it (films) but we are limited by the number of theatres and screen density. You now have a living-room large screen available to showcase that. (Refers to the release of Sitaare Zameen Par on YouTube in August after its theatrical release.)

 

How have the pay-per-view releases like Sitaare Zameen Par done?

 

Internally we call it T-VoD (transaction video-on-demand) and we have done several of these earlier. Sitaare Zameen Par did exceptionally well. We continue to have discussions with the industry. You can expect a lot more action next year from us on this.

 

Is advertising still the bulk of YouTube’s revenues in India?

 

Advertising would still be the bulk. Across stakeholders (creators and traditional media & entertainment firms) what is clear is the need for commerce. The Confederation of Indian Industry recently released a white paper which showed India’s contribution to global media & entertainment was far smaller than the volume of content we create. Therefore, what you see from us is also expanding the opportunities for monetisation. Of the big ones there is shopping. There has been a 250 per cent increase in shopping watch time (in February this year over February last year). We see tremendous growth in shopping-related searches.

 

If you think about the shopping funnel, you come, search, consider, and buy. And that is where we are seeing people’s willingness to put trust in YouTube creators. About 85 per cent of users said that they trust the recommendations made by YouTube creators. Fandom and trust play a disproportionate role in the middle funnel.

 

The loyalty loop — the willingness of users to come back and make repeat purchases with the same brand — goes up dramatically. Shopping is a big strategic imperative and will remain a big priority next year.

 

YouTube has been the source of information about whatever you want to buy for long. How is this different?

 

As a consumer, you came, and you got your research. And then you shop. But the creator was not getting rewarded. YouTube Shopping was launched in October last year. When we take this all the way, it is tagged. All you need to do is click on it. It’s a deep link to the merchant site. And the creator also earns commissions, which is a new stream of revenue. (Till May, more than 3 million videos were tagged with affiliate products. Till June this year about 40 per cent of its ‘eligible’ creators in India were enrolled in the YouTube Shopping affiliate programme.)

 

What are the key things on your dashboard?

 

It is the three Cs — creators, commerce, and connected TV.

 

The continuous expansion of commerce, meaning monetisation, includes shopping, ads, fan funding, and other options. This is for traditional creators on YouTube, larger media companies, and movies. We are bullish on growth and what is possible with connected TV.

 

On the creator front the role that artificial intelligence (AI) can play is on three different fronts. One is huge productivity gains. Compared to developed markets, India is a low CPM market (CPM, or the cost per thousand, is the rate advertisers pay). The importance of productivity gains on video production costs is important in this market. And therefore, work on bringing more creation tools will be a priority.

 

The second one is on languages. Language used to be that huge fence that prevented content from getting the views and eyeballs that it deserved. We are committed to breaking that fence with AI. We are seeing early adoption of it. For instance, MrBeast has for two years emerged on the top of our creator list because he’s using language tools to penetrate the Indian market. He started with two and is at seven Indian languages. (MrBeast’s channel gained over 47 million subscribers in India between January 1 and November 18.)

 

The third role that AI can play is when we think about the large screen, quality starts becoming important. And AI allows you to get much better quality with ease. That will open up a new generation of studios.