Online video consumption grows 5 times in 2017: Report

Online video consumption grew almost five times in the country in 2017, with 96 percent of all usage focused on long-form video, according to a report.

With affordable data prices, the last 12 months have seen higher video consumption in smaller towns, which are contributing more to the phenomenon, Star India's streaming platform Hotstar's India Watch Report noted.

"This marks an inflection point in India where the early years of online video were characterised by short-form consumption as users were deeply fearful of data charges," it said.

It observed that the small screen is the preferred medium as more than 90 percent of time is spent watching on the mobile, and an average user spends upto 2.5 times more watch time on mobile content, the web.

Hotstar, which has over 350 million followers, found that 96 percent of watch time on its platform comes from videos longer than 20 minutes.

Cities with populations between 1 lakh and 10 lakh clocked the highest growth in watch time at 4.3 times and many cities like Moradabad (22 times), Allahabad (13 times), Hubli (12 times) and Sonipat (12 times) are making big leaps, even above the overall national index growth, it pointed out.

While noting that the gender gap in access to data persists, it said affordability is opening up new opportunities for women, especially for those in smaller cities.