YouTube witnesses surge in video consumption in Indian languages

Video-sharing website YouTube is experiencing a “staggering growth” in consumption of content in Indian languages with more than 1,200 video creators in the country crossing the million-subscriber base, a top company official said on Thursday. The website currently has over 265 million users per month in India and 60 per cent of content consumption is outside the metro cities, he said. “We are witnessing a staggering growth in content consumption in Indian languages. More than 1200 creators in the country have crossed the million-subscriber threshold. Just five years ago there were only two creators with one million subscribers,” said Satya Raghavan, the director of content partnerships of YouTube in India.

Over 95 per cent of the online video consumption is in Indian languages and Bengali content is growing more than 100 per cent year-on-year in watch time, he said. “About 60 per cent of content consumption actually happens outside metros and there is huge demand from consumers for the content across categories such as dance, music, comedy, education, food, tech, entertainment and learning,” Raghavan said.