India's OTT audience reaches 665 million in 2026, and connected TV grows 60%
27 October 2026 · 2 min read · HireHo
Based on the Ormax OTT Audience Report 2026 (survey of 15,000 people in June and July 2026). Summarised in our own words.
Ormax Media's sixth annual OTT report estimates that 664.9 million people in India, about 45% of the population, watch online video. That is 11% more than the 601.2 million of 2025. The report is based on interviews with 15,000 people across urban and rural India in June and July 2026.
Paying viewers
There were 172.6 million active paid subscriptions, up 16%. Ormax counts a subscription as active if it was used at least once in the past month, and this includes subscriptions bundled by telecom companies and aggregators.
The TV screen is catching up
Connected TV (CTV), meaning TVs that stream over the internet, reached 206.9 million users, up 60%. Ormax CEO Shailesh Kapoor said India is moving from a phone-led market to a two-screen one. The average viewer watches about 14.9 hours of video a week across streaming, social platforms, micro-dramas and free ad-supported channels. There are 44 Indian cities with at least 1 million OTT viewers.
What people are watching more
- Micro-dramas (very short episodes): audience up 50%
- K-dramas: up 48%
- Anime: up 32%
What this means for you
- Streaming needs many kinds of workers: editors, subtitlers, dubbing artists, sound and camera crew, and content moderators.
- Dubbing and subtitling in Indian languages can be a skill to build, since viewers outside the metros are growing.
- If you are a creator, short-format vertical video is where audience growth is reported.
The second and third points are our reading, not statements from the report.