Paid content in India Worth Only Rs20crores
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Rs20Crore, that’s the worth of paid content subscription in India. Rs7080crore that’s the worth of the e-commerce market. That’s about 0.3% of the total market size. The study was conducted by IAMAI and IMRB, the report is available here.
Balendu Shrivastava, research director, IMRB International says “The paid content subscription market is very fragmented. In general, Indian consumers do not like paying for content,”
The most popular verticals with paid-content are: sports, games, research and reports, shopping guides, exclusive videos, financial information, adult content and audio books.
Why I feel that India isn’t yet ready for Paid Subscription –
Freely available elsewhere – I have come across so many articles for which I have to pay first. Just do a google search and you will find the same news available elsewhere for free.
Pay Money Online!! Ya Right!!– Credit card fraud is increasing at 20-30 % every year and people aren’t yet convinced on the security aspect of online transactions.
Availability of content in vernacular languages – I got this one from the report, it often is the case, if I am paying for it I should get content the way I want it. As of now not many portals provide this service.
Importance – how important is it for me? Will you be able to provide the same quality content every time?
I took a small survey, the interviewees were from PR companies to design houses, to Mobile developers. This is the feed back I received from them.
Out of the 20 people I surveyed about 15 said ‘NO’ they wouldn’t pay for paid content in any form.
Here are a few comments
Vandana - no….only if its stats and data which is found nowhere then ill prob will…again depending on the urgency of the situation…but my answer would be NO
Roxy - yeah sure, but a minimal amt, and customized news
Kas - Wouldn’t mind paying a nominal fee if i am going to get additional services like for eg: News Clippings tht i require, additional info, allowed to download and save the content etc… ALso depends on the kind of fee charged….
One key learning from the above comments is that Indians want their news Customized and at a nominal fee. Again I say that Indians are not cheap, they just look for value from the money they invest. Allow customers to customize their content, right from choosing the content to making it available, downloadable, transferable etc. gaming portals should look at downloadable games which can also be transferred on other devices like mobile.
One Solution - Go Free
Wall street is a good example of paid content going free, from being a successful paid content provider they have now offering content free to public. there are blogs, websites, gaming portals etc that are already providing similar content for free, instead should look at look at other means to make money. till now there are not many portals that are providing valuable enough content for which users feel the need to pay for.
According to iamai the paid content industry is expected to grow by 50%, and is expected to be worth Rs. 30 crores at the end of 2007-08 but that’s still not enough as compared to the overall e-commerce industry.
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do you have any figures on how the rest of the world is doing WRT paid content - maybe its a world wide thing - or maybe not. May also be an indication of how differentiated the mindsets of internet consumers are - since they say that the internet is not bound by geography.
Maybe u guys should do some research on that - whether mindsets on the internet are similar worldwide or do they change locally. So one can determine whether the internet is truly a global medium - some obvious answers do come to mind looking at the steps taken mind by companies but maybe ul can shed some light on that.
I would also like to add that iv noticed some companies use their free content extremely well and strategise it with their paid services (this company is one such example) - the Economist is another really good one - companies that provide free services that are of exceptional quality and then also offer paid services really do get the reader thinking - “if the free service is so good - the paid service must be AWESOME”. Further such a strategy ensures overall consumer utility and an ever increasing potential consumer base.
I also think one of the reasons that people dont want to pay for content on the internet is that they feel empowered - almost intellectually invincible to some extent due to the internet. Maybe its a false sense of empowerment - maybe not. I guess as you rightly put it - companies need to SHOW the consumer that they are worth it by going beyond their expectations
Hi Harshil,
its a very nice comment u have left us and thanks for the tip off on the new article, we should be doing that for sure.
i agree with u on the “if the free service is so good - the paid service must be AWESOME”. thanks for the insight and may be if you are really interested u can send a article on what u said earlier, we will publish & give u credit for it.
Cheers