India‘s premium streaming market generated $1.04B in revenues in the first six months of 2024, according to research, with cricket driving the market.

Driven by advertising and subscription, revenues were up 38% from the $to 760M bagged in H1 2023, a report from AMPD, the digital measurement platform owned by Media Partners Asia.

Sports, especially cricket, and local drama and romance productions lead the consumption of premium streaming. Nine of the top 15 titles were sporting, including six Indian nation team matches.

Cricket rights have been in headlines in India this week, with Disney suing rival Zee Entertainment Enterprises for about $940M over an agreement that collapsed in January. Disney had sublicensed TV and streaming rights to men’s and women’s matches for the 2024-2027 period for around $1.4B, but the agreement has not since carried forwards. Zee has refuted the claims and the issues is now being heard at the London Court of International Arbitration.

AMPD’s data shows Jio Cinema, Netflix and Disney+ Hotstar contributed a combined 70% of the revenues within the premium streaming (known in the report as ‘premium VOD’) category, with the Reliance-owned JJio leading the way at 36%. Disney+ Hotstar and Jio’s parent companies are set to merge in India, meaning the new group will be market leader by an event greater extent when under the services are under the same roof. Both streamers have cricket rights to the likes of the Indian Premier League and ICC World Cup, and this was believed to be behind an India business watchdog demanding “voluntary modifications” to be undertaken to get the full go-ahead for the merger.

Netflix is the biggest SVOD service, making 38% of that category’s revenues. Together with Prime Video, this number increased to 70%. AMPD also noted that total streaming subscriptions have risen from 110 million to 120 million in H1 2024, with Jio Cinema’s low-cost plan incentivizing new customers.

MPA India Vice President Mihir Shah predicted “subscriber growth momentum will continue in 2H 2024, driven by aggregation and deeper partnerships with telcos, pay-TV operators, and OEM [original equipment manufacturer]s. In addition, with the onset of the festive season, advertising spending should be robust in Q4  2024.

“However, with no major sports events, spending will shift toward tentpole non-fiction shows on premium VOD platforms, with a significant portion moving back to high-reach UGC platforms. Netflix and Prime Video have a steady stream of content planned for 2H 2024. For freemium platforms, entertainment spends have started to come back under new advertising-friendly formats like TV++, which are similar to daily TV soap operas with 40-120+ episodes per season. These formats have proven to attract new users and drive engagement with lower budgets.”

AMPD’s data shows a total of 8 trillion minutes were streamed across online services in India during H1 2024, with YouTube dominating by taking 92% of all consumption. Within what AMPD describes as ‘premium video,’ free services led with 92% of the 645 billion minutes streamed.