The latest study by ComScore on the state of Internet in India throws up two disturbing factors for Indian media. The two disturbing findings in the report, “India Digital Future in Focus 2013: Key Insights and Digital Trends Shaping the Indian Online Space”, are:
Finding 1
High percentage of outside visitors: The Indian media sites draw a large percentage of their visitors from abroad. According to the ComScore.com study, 40% of the web users visiting The Times of India and NDTV sites are based outside of India. The same is true of Economic Times; 33 per cent of its visitors are based abroad. Similarly, 27% of One India and IBNLive visitors live outside of India. In the case of HT media this figure stands at 24%.
These figures would have drawn cheer in the 1990s when there was little connectivity in India. The Indian media sites drew their traffic primarily from Indians settled abroad. But today these figures should be a cause for concern. How can the media sales teams generate web advertising if the lion’s share of their traffic is coming from outside India? No Indian advertiser will be interested in targeting Indians who are not its customers.
There will be some business sectors that will surely be interested in this customer base. These are primarily financial institutions trying to catch NRI remittances and real estate companies reaching out to NRIs to invest in India. There will be some traffic to e-commerce and travel sites. But this revenue will not be large enough to generate handsome returns on Internet investments.
The Indian media needs to find a way to generate more traffic from within the country.
Finding 2
Low time spent on news sites: The time spent by visitors on Indian news and information sites is less than half the world average. The worldwide average time spent on new/information sites, according to the ComScore study is 69.7 minutes.
The reach of news/information sites too is less than the world average. The reach of Indian media sites is limited to 56.8% of web users. In contrast, this figure for the world is 76.1%
The Indian media sites need to reflect on this. They must find out why Indians are spending less time on their news sites. Is it because of the product mix? Is it because of display? The problem should be addressed at the earliest.
Leave a Reply