Applications
Digital movie sales quadrupled in 5 years: Study
MUMBAI: As US household TV screens continue to increase in size, so do the sales and rentals of digital movies. Subscription streaming, and video-on-demand (VoD) sales of movies are expected to increase tenfold in the 10-year period 2007-17.
Sales more than quadrupled from $1.3 billion to $5.5 billion during 2007-12, according to Mintel‘s latest research digital downloads.
Mintel senior technology analyst Billy Hulkower said, “We live in a time of instant gratification and the idea of waiting for a movie to arrive in the mail or actually driving to a store to get one is an idea of the past. Increased acceptance of all intangible media, including music, photos, books and games is a driver with consumers increasingly acclimated to the immediacy of all digital formats.”
Traditional DVD rentals are still the most popular way to rent movies, with 32 per cent of online consumers renting individual discs via this method in the past 30 days. However, online streaming services such as Netflix or Amazon Instant Video and pay TV (ie. pay-per-view or video-on-demand) are gaining on physical disc rental in popularity. A quarter of respondents say they have used online streaming in the past 30 days and 22 per cent have used a pay TV method.
Streaming movies is more popular than using physical discs among 18-24 year olds showing that Millennials are the key demographic in the digital movie marketplace. Just more than half (51 per cent) of 18-24 age group have rented a movie or TV show in the past 30 days via a monthly subscription method versus only 31 per cent of all age groups. In addition, 55 per cent of 18-24 age group rented via a streaming service compared to only 38 per cent of all age groups.
According to Mintel, those who buy any type of digital movie are also more likely to purchase any type of physical movie and vice versa. Considering this, the most common basis for selecting one or the other is based on price-approximately one-third of respondents say they will buy either format depending on which is cheaper.
In spite of aggressive expansion on the part of Amazon into digital media, and digital video in particular, Apple‘s iTunes is the clear leader in digital movie sales. Six in 10 respondents who purchased a digital-store movie in the past 30 days, did so through iTunes, more than twice the share that did so at Amazon (25 per cent) and three times as many as any other competitor.
Applications
Inshorts Group chief Deepit Purkayastha joins IAB video council for Southeast Asia and India
The co-founder and chief executive of the short-form content platform has been inducted into the IAB SEA+India Video Council, giving India a stronger voice in shaping digital video frameworks
NOIDA: India has long been the world’s most chaotic, multilingual and mobile-first digital market. Now, one of its most prominent short-video executives is getting a seat at the table where the rules are written.
Deepit Purkayastha, co-founder and chief executive of Inshorts Group, has been selected as a member of the IAB SEA+India Video Council for 2026. Run by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the council brings together senior leaders from Southeast Asia and India to shape standards, best practices and measurement frameworks for the fast-evolving video and digital advertising ecosystem.
The timing is pointed. According to the IAMAI-Kantar Internet in India Report 2025, over 588 million Indians are now consuming short-video content, with growth increasingly driven by rural and non-metro audiences. India’s active internet user base has crossed 950 million, with 57 per cent of users now coming from rural markets. Yet the frameworks that govern how video consumption is measured and monetised were largely designed for single-language, Western markets and have struggled to keep pace with the scale, diversity and complexity of India’s digital landscape.
Purkayastha is no stranger to these debates. He already serves on the AI Council at Marketing and Media Alliance India and as co-chair of the Digital Entertainment Committee at the Internet and Mobile Association of India. His induction into the IAB SEA+India Video Council extends that influence into the global video standards arena.
Inshorts Group sits squarely at the intersection of these forces. Its flagship product, Inshorts, India’s highest-rated short news app, reaches 12 million active users with 60-word news summaries. Its sister platform, Public App, reaches 80 million monthly active users across more than 700 districts and 12 languages, serving communities that most global platforms barely register.
Purkayastha said the opportunity was about building something more representative. “India today sits at the centre of the global video ecosystem, but the frameworks that define how value is created and measured have not always kept pace with the realities of our market,” he said. “Being part of the IAB SEA+India Video Council is an opportunity to contribute to a more representative and future-ready approach, one that accounts for diversity in language, context, and user intent.”
As a council member, Purkayastha will contribute to shaping regional standards across video advertising, measurement and platform governance, with a focus on frameworks that are native to India’s multilingual, mobile-first ecosystem rather than imported from global benchmarks designed elsewhere.
For years, India has been content to play by rules written for other markets. Purkayastha’s induction is a signal that it is done waiting to be consulted and ready to start writing them.
