MAM
Majority of Indians interconnected with the world through email, social media: Ipsos poll
MUMBAI: The majority of Indians are interconnected with the world due to email and social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, according to a new poll by Ipsos.
68 per cent of people across India who are connected online send and receive emails and 60 per cent communicate through social networking sites, and a quarter (25 per cent) of them use voice-over IP (VOIP) for audio conversations conducted via an Internet connection.
Ipsos India Head of marketing and communications Biswarup Banerjee said, “Internet penetration in India has been very good in recent years, however, relative to country like China, India still does lack behind. According to Industry estimates 103.6 million people will go online in 2012, and the number of users is expected to more than double to 221.6 million by 2015. This along with proliferation of internet access through smart phone will further increase the usage of email, social networking sites and other online communication tools”.
Incidentally according to another Ipsos survey, around 40 million Indians access the Internet through their smart phones, 56 per cent of smartphone users in the country access the Internet multiple times a day, nearly 40 per cent surf the Net at least once a day and only 6 per cent never use their phone for connecting to the Web.
A strong majority (85 per cent) of online-connected global citizens in 24 countries use the Internet for emails while six in ten (62 per cent) use it for social networking, and little over one in ten (14 per cent) use the Internet for connecting with people through voice-over IP.
Globally Email is King…but social media is close behind: Most (85 per cent) global respondents who are connected online report they use the Internet for sending and receiving emails, including a majority of those in each country surveyed except for Saudi Arabia where only half (46%) say so. Those in Hungary (94 per cent) are most likely to say they use the Internet for emailing, followed by nine in ten of those in Sweden (92 per cent), Belgium (91 per cent), Indonesia (91 per cent), Argentina (90 per cent) and Poland (90 per cent).
Social media popularity is high among global citizens using the Internet. A majority of them (62%) say they visit social networking sites, forums or blogs including eight in ten of those in Indonesia (83 per cent), Argentina (76 per cent) and Russia (75 per cent) and seven in ten of those in South Africa (73 per cent), Sweden (72 per cent), Spain (71 per cent) and Hungary (70 per cent). Even in countries where social media surfing is less popular, a sizable minority of those connected online still report using the Internet in this way: 35 per cent in Japan, 42 per cent in Saudi Arabia and 50 per cent in France.
“Although Facebook and other popular social networking sites, blogs and forums, were founded in the United States the percentage of users was lower at six in 10, and in Japan it fell to 35%, the lowest of the 24 countries in the global survey. The fact that more than six in 10 people worldwide use social networks and forums, suggests a transformation in how people communicate with each other,” said Banerjee.
Although Americans and Japanese are thought to be very tech savvy, voice-over IP (VOIP), audio conversations conducted via an Internet connection, were not very popular in both countries with less than 10 per cent of people using the relatively new technology, compared to 36 per cent in Russia, 32 per cent in Turkey and 25 per cent in India.
Ipsos interviewed a total of 19,216 adults in the month of February in an online survey across 24 countries like Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Britain, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the US.
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.
