MAM
Digital advertising spend to see 35% growth in India
MUMBAI: India’s booming digital advertising market has “reached a tipping point” and is set for double-digit growth driven by global investment in the country and policy reforms under the new Narendra Modi administration, according to ad:tech head of EMEA & India James Drake-Brockman.
Led by mobile, social media and the emergence of new technologies, digital advertising spend in India is expected to increase by an impressive 35 per cent in 2015 and further growth is predicted as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Digital India’ policy enhances India’s internet infrastructure.
As global industry leaders prepare to gather in Gurgaon for ad:tech New Delhi conference on 19-20 March, Brockman feels that India’s burgeoning advertising technology sector is experiencing unprecedented investment as advertisers switch on to the growing need to allocate digital resource. “A strong digital presence is no longer a ‘nice to have’ – those who don’t will struggle to keep up with the ever evolving relationship between brand and consumer,” he said.
Last year’s ad:tech New Delhi happened at a time when India had reached a tipping point of investment. Rather than attendees using the event to gather information and understand what is out there, they were coming to the event and treating it as a marketplace with serious budgets to invest.
“The surge in number of brands sending groups of marketers to the event in 2015 reflects this trend and demonstrates the fact that India’s marketing community is serious about digital,” added Brockman.
The ‘Digital India’ policy and the prospect of getting India’s 1.3 billion people online has compounded interest in the sector: “Advertisers realise that increased internet access combined with changing consumer behaviour and spending have created a unique window of opportunity. They realise that they need the right digital advertising tools to capitalise and are turning to technology companies here in India and overseas for solutions and partners,” said ad:tech New Delhi head of content and marketing Vinish Joshi.
“All of this is good news for the advertising technology industry, good news for the economy and good news for India,” added Joshi.
Featuring a ‘Digital Ahead’ theme, over 5,000 people are expected to attend ad:tech New Delhi where industry leaders speaking include Unilever VP media for Asia, Africa, Middle East, Turkey and Russia Rahul Welde, Group M chief digital officer Rob Norman and Flipkart head of fashion Mukesh Bansal.
Digital
Content India 2026 opens with a copro pitch, a spice evangelist and a £10,000 prize for Indian storytelling
Dish TV and C21Media’s three-day summit puts seven ambitious projects before an international jury, and two walk away with serious development money
MUMBAI: India’s content industry gathered in Mumbai this March for Content India 2026, a three-day summit organised by Dish TV in partnership with C21Media, and it wasted no time making a statement. The event opened with a Copro Pitch that put seven scripted and unscripted television concepts before an international panel of judges, and by the end of it, two projects had walked away with £10,000 each in marketing prize money from C21Media to support development and international promotion.
The jury, comprising Frank Spotnitz, Fiona Campbell, Rashmi Bajpai, Bal Samra and Rachel Glaister, evaluated a shortlist that ranged from a dark Mumbai comedy-drama about mental health (Dirty Minds, created by Sundar Aaron) to a Delhi coming-of-age mystery (Djinn Patrol, by Neha Sharma and Kilian Irwin), a techno-thriller about a teenage gaming prodigy (Kanpur X Satori, by Suchita Bhatia), an investigative crime drama blending mythology and modern thriller (The Age of Kali, by Shivani Bhatija), a documentary on India’s spice heritage (The Masala Quest, hosted by Sarina Kamini), a documentary on competitive gaming (Respawn: India’s Esports Revolution, by George Mangala Thomas and Sangram Mawari), and a reality-horror competition merging gaming and immersive fear (Scary Goose, by Samar Iqbal).
The session was hosted by Mayank Shekhar.
The two winners were Djinn Patrol, backed by Miura Kite, formerly of Participant Media and known for Chinatown and Keep Sweet: Pray & Obey, with Jaya Entertainment, producers of Real Kashmir Football Club, also attached; and The Masala Quest, created and hosted by Sarina Kamini, an Indian-Australian cook, author and self-described “spice evangelist.”
The summit also unveiled the Content India Trends Report, whose findings made for bracing reading. Daoud Jackson, senior analyst at OMDIA, set the tone: “By 2030, online video in India will nearly double the revenue of traditional TV, becoming the main driver of growth.” He noted that in 2025, India produced a quarter of all YouTube videos globally, overtaking the United States, while Indians collectively spend 117 years daily on YouTube and 72 years on Instagram. Traditional subscription TV is declining as free TV and connected TV gain ground, forcing broadcasters to innovate. “AI-generated content is just 2 per cent of engagement,” Jackson added, “highlighting the dominance of high-quality human content. The key for Indian media companies is scaling while monetising effectively from day one.”
Hannah Walsh, principal analyst at Ampere Analysis, added hard numbers to the picture. India produced over 24,000 titles in January 2026 alone, with 19,000 available internationally. The country now accounts for 12 per cent of Asia-Pacific content spend, up from 8 per cent in 2021, outpacing both Japan and China. Key exporters include JioStar, Zee Entertainment, Sony India, Amazon and Netflix, delivering over 7,500 Indian-produced titles abroad each year. The top importing markets are Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, the United States and the Philippines. Scripted content dominates globally at 88 per cent, with crime dramas and children’s and family titles performing particularly strongly.
Manoj Dobhal, chief executive and executive director of Dish TV India, framed the summit’s ambition squarely. “Stories don’t need translation. They need a platform, discovery, and reach, local or global,” he said. “India produces more movies than any country, our streaming platforms compete globally, and our tech and creators win international awards. Yet fragmentation slows growth. Producers, platforms, and tech move in different lanes. We need shared spaces, collaboration, and an ecosystem where ideas, technology, and people meet. That is why we built Content India.”
The data, the pitches and the prize money all pointed to the same conclusion: India is not waiting for the world to discover its stories. It is building the infrastructure to sell them.
