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PwC estimates OTT to rake in $552 mn in India by 2015
MUMBAI: The over-the-top television market might still be in its infancy in India but still holds a lot of promise in future, a fact that is borne out by PricewaterhouseCoopers which forecasts 176 million OTT viewers by 2015 generating revenues of $552 million.
Mobile Internet TV is one of the biggest growth areas in India with a third of Indian smartphone users watching TV on their smartphones, according to the PwC research. Content streaming solutions firm Vidiator commissioned PwC for the research.
With television household penetration hitting 65 per cent, there exists tremendous opportunities for live OTT and mobile Internet TV for those households that currently have no existing terrestrial infrastructure, cable or satellite services.
Currently, the Indian market has just one over-the-top (OTT) television distribution platform in the form of Ditto TV launched by Zee New Media, the digital arm of Zee Entertainment, in March this year. There are numerous on-demand online content providers like NyooTV, BigFlix and Eros Now, among others.
The huge opportunity notwithstanding, Vidiator CEO Tae Sung Park warns that despite consumers’ huge appetite for mobile streaming services, Indian mobile operators are being overly cautious towards this potentially lucrative opportunity.
The reluctance of telcos stems from an understandable concern about major investments into hardware and infrastructure and fears about the length of time it will take to recoup the money they think is needed to launch an OTT service, says the report.
On top of this, many operators are busy rolling out 3G and LTE infrastructure and are worried about finding the resources to also deploy a video streaming service. They also question their ability to recoup the incremental costs of offering OTT at good enough quality to paid service in a pre-pay market.
An independent survey of Indian consumers was conducted to find out what people want from mobile video and if they’d ever pay for it. Of those surveyed, 88 per cent said they would consider paying for mobile video now or in the future, with as many 54 per cent saying they had already paid to access content.
However there is a caveat attached: People will only pay for video that is good quality and that is delivered quickly, particularly since the biggest problem faced by consumers while accessing content online is that of buffering and poor quality images. The biggest issue, however, is that 68 per cent of the people surveyed expressed dissatisfaction with the time it takes video to load.
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With 57 per cent single new users, Ashley Madison rebrands as discreet dating platform
Platform says majority of new members now identify as single
INDIA: Ashley Madison is shedding the “married-dating” label that defined it for two decades, repositioning itself as a platform for discreet dating in what it calls the post-social media age.
The rebrand, unveiled in India on 27 February, 2026, marks a structural shift in business model and identity. Once synonymous with married dating, the company now describes itself as the “premier destination for discreet dating” under a new tagline: Where Desire Meets Discretion.
The pivot is data-driven. Internal figures show that 57 per cent of global sign-ups between 1 January and 31 December, 2025 identified as single: a notable departure from the platform’s married core. The company argues that its community has already evolved beyond its original positioning.
“In an age where our lives have been constantly put on public display, privacy has become the new luxury,” said Ashley Madison chief strategy officer Paul Keable. He framed the platform’s offering as “ethical discretion” for singles, separated, divorced and non-monogamous users seeking private connections.
The shift also taps into wider digital fatigue. A global survey conducted by YouGov for Ashley Madison, covering 13,071 adults across Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Switzerland, the UK and the US, found mounting discomfort with hyper-public online lives.
Among dating app users, 30 per cent cited constant swiping and messaging as a source of fatigue, while 24 per cent pointed to pressure to curate public-facing profiles and early personal disclosure. Some 27 per cent said fears of screenshots or information being shared contributed to exhaustion; an equal share cited unwanted attention.
The retreat from oversharing appears broader. According to the survey, 46 per cent of adults actively try to keep most aspects of their life private online. Only 8 per cent feel comfortable sharing most aspects publicly, while 35 per cent say they are becoming more selective about what they disclose.
Ashley Madison is betting that this cultural recalibration towards controlled visibility can be monetised. By doubling down on privacy infrastructure and reframing itself around discretion rather than infidelity, the company is attempting to convert reputational baggage into a premium proposition.
