Indian short-form video apps looking at a $12-19 billion monetisation opportunity by 2030: RedSeer report

The rising popularity of these apps is catching advertisers' interest, but monetising them is a challenge.

India’s short-form video apps will soon form a bigger slice of the digital advertising pie, going by RedSeer Consulting’s latest report. It says that “by 2030, short-form can take close to 10-20% of the overall digital ad pie.”

Short-form videos often range between 10 and 60 seconds, and are mostly available on apps with a vertical scroll option for viewers.

In India, leading short-form video apps include Instagram Reels, Moj, TakaTak, Chingari and Roposo. ByteDance-owned TikTok which is the world’s leading short-form video app, led in India too until the government banned it in 2020.

As per the report, India, with 700-750 million users, has the world’s second-largest and fastest-growing Internet user base. Indians, on an average, spend 38 minutes per day watching short-form content.

84% of the 1,124 people RedSeer questioned believed they spend more time watching short-form content than they planned to.

Advertiser interest was bound to hit the short-form category in India, considering its rising popularity. RedSeer says India’s short-form apps are looking at a $12-19 billion monetisation opportunity by 2030, and that advertising, video-commerce and gifting will be the three main levers for this opportunity.

However, monetisation has remained a challenge for most, if not all, short-video apps in India. Viewers can see branded content from influencers. There are, however, ads breaking their vertical scroll experience.

TikTok has managed to overcome this challenge and raked in $4 billion in advertising revenue in 2021.

“Ads on Instagram Reels have not gone to all audiences at this stage,” Arun Srinivas, director – global business group (India), Meta, told afaqs! earlier in July, adding, “We are still trying to learn and scale up. As a responsible platform, we want to deliver value to advertisers.”