Are you missing out by not looking at India?.

While the challenges of the economic downturn are consuming the minds of many media and tech bosses in places like America and the US, there are media markets much less affected.

One such market is India, poised to overtake China as the world’s most populous country this year. In a conversation at the end of last year with the CEO of a well-known Indian publisher, who was upbeat about the outlook for the Indian economy and his companies’ prospects in 2023.

For media leaders, this is something to consider when you know it is a market with multiple millions of consumers of content via phones, websites, newspapers and magazines.

These positive sentiments about the outlook for India were also shared in recent interviews for a Di5rupt report about navigating an economic downturn.

Martin Weese, COO of Burda International based in Germany, told us, “We have to strongly distinguish between regions and business areas.” Not all Burda’s “divisions have been affected equally, some are even performing remarkably well both in terms of sales and profitability. In South East Asia and India the borders have opened up, tourism is reviving, and the region is forging ahead. It’s a part of the world where we recently moved to a more efficient and performance-focused operating model and all of those measures are paying off now.”

US-based M&A specialist, Reed Phillips, CEO of Oaklins, DeSilva and Phillips, said, “In the US, there are economists who think the overall impact of the downturn will be limited and that a return to growth is just months away. In parts of Asia, in particular India, publishers can justifiably ask ‘what downturn?’ as media businesses seem largely unaffected by the pessimism that has infected other parts of the globe.”

Jason Furman, who spent eight years as a top economic adviser to Barack Obama and now teaches at Harvard’s Kennedy School, told Semafor, in response to a question about investing in Asian markets, Western CEOs should “look to Southeast Asia and India.”

So, why all this about India, you might ask?

We have partnered with the Association of Indian Media (AIM) on their annual Congress, taking place on 24 March in Delhi.

With several international speakers confirmed as part of our agreement, we also have opportunities for media licensees and media-tech providers to join a large number of Indian media decision-makers in New Delhi.

Below is a short video from AIM, presented as part of a presentation at a Di5rupt-hosted event in 2022 and some facts and figures about India, as well as about the media landscape in the country.

If you want to learn more about the AIM Congress opportunities, get in touch with me at [email protected].

India stats in a nutshell

• Set to overtake China as the world’s largest population by June.
• 1.38 Billion citizens making it the world’s biggest potential media audience.
• 250m middle class, 14 languages, 28 states, thousands of ethnicities.
• 5 mega cities 10m+
• Newspapers, US 25m, UK 10.5m, Germany 12.3m India 60m
• Underserved subscription ecosystem, less than 10%
• Now 97% delivery efficiencies guaranteed by the postal service, resulting in a four fold increase in subs.
• Newspaper sales 60m+ daily
• High trust in content, deep engagement and editorial specialisation

And a few interesting facts about AIM members:

• 100+ magazines with 150m consumers, 60m in print.
• 50+ Websites, 90m digital users
• 70m Women
• -72% accessing news through smartphones

 

Why would you not want to tap into this market?

Contact me at [email protected] for more.