Television viewership for IPL may be declining but mobile video streaming of the matches on cell phones is seeing a rise.
According to data provided by Apalya Technologies, the exclusive rights holder for mobile video streaming for IPL, in the first seven days of the tournament there were 7 lakh people who viewed the matches on their mobile phones. They spent an average of 13 minutes.
During the same time period last season, IPL matches were viewed by 2 lakh mobile phone users who spent an average 4-5 minutes. Mr Vamshi Krishna Reddy, Co-founder and CEO, Apalya Technologies, says, “We have seen traffic increase on cell phones by four-fold in terms of number of subscribers as well as the minutes of usage in the past three years.”
The Hyderabad-based Apalya Technologies has been providing IPL-related applications for telecom companies such as Vodafone, Idea Cellular and Airtel.
Telecom firm Idea Cellular too says it has seen an uptick in mobile viewership of IPL games. Mr Sashi Shankar, Chief Marketing Officer, Idea Cellular, says, “While it is too early to comment on television viewership, but compared to last year definitely more people are watching the IPL matches on their cell phones today.”
According to Mr Reddy, “The primary reason for the growth in mobile streaming is that the network capacity from a bandwidth standpoint has improved and the smart phone or large screen penetration has made the viewing experience much better.”
Also, since most of the matches happen between 4 pm and 11 pm, office-goers caught in traffic on their way back home, tend to view them on phones.
But the trends in usage tend to be skewed towards the particular city where the matches are being played. “As IPL is more driven by teams, we observe that the traffic is driven by the teams that are playing on that particular day,” says Mr Reddy.
Watching IPL on mobile phones is no longer costly. One can get IPL plus 200 other channels for as little as Rs 150 a month.
This year Apalya aims to cross 10 million subscribers with IPL 5 and expects the viewing minutes to more than double.
purvita@thehindu.co.in