18 to 22 million Indian households are consuming content on CTV: Vishal Kamath, Nielsen
Vishal Kamath, Executive Director - Audience Measurement, Nielsen India spoke about measurement and the CTV space at the e4m Connected TV Conference
Connected TV has become the talk of the town in the digital ecosystem, considering how important its data has become to businesses. At the Connected TV Conference by exchange4media held in Mumbai on April 28th, Vishal Kamath, Executive Director - Audience Measurement, Nielsen India decoded "measurement" and spoke about the CTV space in India.
He divided his session into three parts: the rise of CTV in the U.S., where CTV stacks up in the entire digital ecosystem; and the measurement of the medium for advertisers and marketers.
Kamath spoke about how video is at the top the list of activities among Indian household and shares data on how many users in the country are consuming content on their CTV. “Since morning, we have been talking about CTV, streaming and content. What we all know is that India is a very content hungry market. Be it movies, shows or web series, we love watching our content. From that perspective, it was no surprise that when we look at top activities that people indulge in online, video is right at the top. So video is the most sought-after activity on internet in India today and then you have other activities like social networking, video calling, audio streaming, playing games, making online payments and e-commerce.
"Now while all this engagement is happening, we also have to be realistic in terms of seeing where this engagement is really coming from. All said and done, today still smartphone is the king when it comes from a device perspective which people are using and leveraging from a connectivity standpoint. So, today our estimate says there are over 425 million smartphone connected users in the market. When we look at connected TV in India, from a household perspective, there are about 18 to 22 million households who are CTV enabled and are consuming content on their CTV.”
Towards the end of his talk, Kamath gives some closing points and tells the audience a projected number for how next 5 years looks like in terms of CTV user-data and how marketers need more empirical data while spends on the platform rise.
“We believe in the next five years, it (user-data) could touch about 100 million in India. CTV audiences are upscale. They're affluent. They come from topic metros and are over indexed on certain digital activities. From our marketing report, while CTV spends will continue to increase, marketeers need more empirical data to get that confidence that this is a medium that I should be investing more and more on. Hence, proving the effectiveness of CTV is a big ask which is coming our way.
“Currently, there is no reliable factor to arrive at co viewing that's happening in the market and it's extremely critical because CTV cannot be measured the way computer and mobile is getting measured. Neilsen is working on creating that so viewing factor for the market. RoI measurement is already happening in the market. Marketers are double clicking on digital and now they're also wanting to know what's happening on CTV. In times to come, a lot of ROI based studies will reveal where does CTV stack up versus other digital media. And finally we recognize that getting reach measurement for the market is extremely critical for CTV, we are working on it,” he adds.
