Regional OTT in India: The current frontier of streaming

The big picture — Why regional is the real growth story

India’s OTT industry is on a remarkable trajectory. The Indian OTT market reached USD 5.4 billion in 2025 and is projected to touch USD 28.1 billion by 2034, growing at a CAGR of 19.09 percent. But behind these headline numbers lies a more compelling story — one driven not by Hindi or English content, but by languages, dialects, and cultures that mainstream platforms have long underserved.

Regional language content already accounts for 52 percent of total OTT viewing in India — more than half. Platforms reported a 40 percent year-on-year increase in regional language content consumption as of November 2025. The demand isn’t emerging; it’s already here, running well ahead of supply.

Tier-II and Tier-III cities are the growth frontier, and these are precisely the audiences that consume regional content rather than English or pan-Hindi programming.  India has 22 constitutionally scheduled languages and over 1,300 recognized mother tongues — yet most major platforms serve barely five of them meaningfully. That gap is a multi-billion-dollar opportunity.

The regional OTT players who are getting it right

🎬 Chaupal — The Punjabi-Haryanvi-Bhojpuri pioneer
Chaupal, launched in 2021, is India’s dedicated regional OTT platform built for audiences who love authentic Punjabi, Haryanvi, and Bhojpuri storytelling, offering ad-free streaming of exclusive originals, movies, short films, and web series. It has partnered with Amazon Prime Video as an add-on channel, giving it a massive distribution boost. High-profile Punjabi titles like Jatt and Juliet 3, starring Diljit Dosanjh, have streamed exclusively on Chaupal, underlining how it has become the definitive home for Pollywood content.

 🎬 Hoichoi — The Bengali blueprint
Hoichoi has become the premier Bengali OTT service, boasting approximately 13 million subscribers across 100+ countries, achieving this reach by focusing singularly on Bengali content and diaspora audiences.

What makes Hoichoi’s model instructive is its financial discipline. Rather than burning cash on flashy marketing, Hoichoi has partnered with telecom companies and device OEMs such as Vodafone and Samsung to offer bundled offers. Thanks to this sustainable, limited-burn approach, Hoichoi is nearing cash-flow breakeven and has even modestly raised subscription prices to fund its growing slate of originals.

Its subscriber base is also evolving — while it initially targeted 30-something urban viewers, its fastest-growing segment today is the 50+ age group, and its audience gender mix of 60:40 male-to-female is far more balanced than the OTT industry average. Up to 70 percent of Hoichoi users are paid subscribers — an extraordinary metric that proves deep loyalty in a niche beats shallow reach at scale.

🎬 Aha — The Telugu powerhouse that expanded smart
Aha, launched in 2020 by Geetha Arts and backed by producer Allu Aravind, achieved profitability in the Telugu market and expanded to Tamil in 2022. It subsequently joined Airtel Xstream in late 2023, gaining exposure to 5+ million bundle subscribers overnight.

Aha’s success rests on two pillars: a flood of Telugu originals that the big platforms ignored, and a price point that made subscription a non-decision for Telugu households. Aha focuses exclusively or heavily on paid subscribers, unlike the freemium models dominating the broader market. Its expansion into Tamil demonstrated that a regional OTT can expand into other languages once it dominates its home turf.

🎬 SunNXT — The library giant
SunNXT, an extension of the Sun TV Network, launched in 2017, carries 4,000+ movies and 30+ live TV channels, and has crossed 20 million users, backed heavily by telecom bundling deals. Its advantage is legacy — decades of South Indian content instantly available on a digital platform. SunNXT serves Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam audiences, proving that a strong broadcast lineage can be effectively monetized in the streaming era.

🎬 ManoramaMAX — Kerala’s loyal niche
Backed by the Malayala Manorama Group, ManoramaMAX is a textbook case of how media legacy translates to OTT loyalty. Up to 85 percent of ManoramaMAX users are paid subscribers — the highest premium penetration of any regional platform in India. For a state with high literacy, strong media consumption habits, and a diaspora spread across the Gulf, UK, and North America, ManoramaMAX functions almost like a cultural lifeline.

🎬 STAGE — Hyper-Local done right
STAGE, which focuses on Haryanvi, Rajasthani, and hyper-local North Indian content, secured USD 12.5 million in Series B funding and is one of the few examples of truly hyper-local OTT working at scale as of 2025. STAGE proves that even languages without a global diaspora pull can build profitable streaming businesses if the content is culturally authentic and the pricing is right.

Language preference: What Indian audiences want
The myth that Indian OTT viewers primarily want Hindi or English content has been decisively shattered by the data. Nearly 50 percent of OTT consumption in India is in regional languages, and this share is expected to rise further.

Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Marathi, Bhojpuri, and Punjabi dominate, with Tier-II and Tier-III cities contributing 60–70 percent of total viewership. Crucially, Tier-II and Tier-III markets show significantly higher preference for family, romance, revenge, and aspirational narratives compared to the experimental, satirical, or trend-based content that performs better in metros.

South Indian languages — particularly Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam — have the most organized and financially committed OTT audiences. Bengali punches above its weight globally due to its diaspora reach. And emerging languages like Marathi, Punjabi, Gujarati, Odia, and Bhojpuri represent the next wave, all with massive speaker bases and limited dedicated streaming options.

Marathi has 85 million speakers, is India’s third-largest language, and is spoken in Maharashtra — home to Mumbai, the country’s financial capital — with a thriving film and theatre ecosystem, yet no dedicated OTT platform at scale. Gujarati has 55 million speakers with a strong diaspora in the UK, USA, and East Africa, yet it also lacks a proper dedicated OTT home. These are glaring gaps that represent enormous opportunities.

Strategy guide: How Hindi or international OTT players should enter regional markets
For any large platform — whether a domestic Hindi-focused service like Zee5 or SonyLIV, or an international player like Netflix or Apple TV+ — entering regional markets requires a fundamentally different mindset than what has worked in Hindi or English. Here’s the playbook:

1. Originals first, library second
   Licensing old regional movies is table stakes. What wins audiences is original content made for that language community — stories rooted in local geography, social issues, humour, and relationships. Aha’s original Telugu web series defined its identity far more than its library ever could. Any entrant must invest in 6–10 strong original series in year one to signal a genuine commitment.
2. Telecom bundling as the distribution highway
   Aha’s tie-up with Airtel Xstream, SunNXT’s bundling with mobile operators, and JioHotstar’s advantage from Reliance Jio’s massive subscriber base all demonstrate that telecom is the real distribution highway in India.  A new regional entrant can reach the majority of a language community’s smartphone users through a single operator agreement — this is non-negotiable for fast market penetration.
3. Diaspora monetization — The underutilized premium layer
   Diaspora monetization is a significantly underutilized lever. Higher ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) from diaspora markets can cross-subsidize domestic growth. Hoichoi proved this for Bengalis across Southeast Asia and the Middle East. A Hindi or international platform entering, say, the Punjabi or Tamil space should launch internationally before or simultaneously with India — diaspora subscribers are more willing to pay higher prices and have lower churn.
4. Lean into AI-powered localization
   BHASHINI and other language AI tools make subtitling, dubbing quality improvement, and voice navigation significantly cheaper to implement than they were even three years ago. Platforms that use AI to do real-time, high-quality translation across their Hindi or English library can instantly offer regional viewers access to a far larger content pool at minimal incremental cost.
5. Hire locals, not translators
   The biggest mistake outsiders make is treating regional content as translated Hindi. The creative leadership for regional verticals must come from within that language community — writers, directors, and showrunners who understand the culture, the humour, the family dynamics, and the social context. Netflix’s success in South India (Tamil and Malayalam especially) came partly from backing local directors with international production standards.
6. Pricing architecture must match the market
   Regional subscribers are price-sensitive but deeply loyal when emotionally invested. Mobile-only plans at ₹29–₹99, annual plans with meaningful discounts, and AVOD (ad-supported free) tiers for Tier-3 audiences are essential. What regional platforms cannot do is apply a one-size-fits-all metro pricing strategy.
7. Avoid the “token regional” trap
   If regional markets are not served by dedicated content investment in the next 2–3 years, the vacuum will likely be filled by larger platforms that add a few regional originals per year — enough to suppress a competitor from launching but not enough to genuinely serve the audience. The cultural outcome of that scenario: tens of millions of speakers of Odia, Punjabi, Gujarati, Bhojpuri, Maithili, and Assamese consume content primarily through platforms whose editorial priorities lie elsewhere. Genuine commitment means a ring-fenced content budget, a dedicated editorial team, and multi-year IP building — not a seasonal experiment.

The Punjabi surge: From regional to global phenomenon
No conversation about regional OTT is complete without a close look at Punjabi — arguably the most globally potent regional language content market in India today.

Punjabi OTT content viewership jumped 55 percent year-on-year in 2024. Regional OTT revenue in North India crossed ₹1,200 crore, with Pollywood contributing a hefty slice. Between 2023 and 2025, more than 30 Punjabi OTT originals launched across platforms. 

What makes Punjabi uniquely powerful is its dual domestic and international pull. Audiences across India, Canada, the UK, the USA, and around the world are binge-watching Punjabi content like never before. The massive global Punjabi audience spans Punjab, Delhi, Canada, the UK, and Australia.

Punjabi actors command loyalty both at home and abroad — from Ludhiana to London, the fandom runs deep. For OTT brands, that’s two markets for the price of one: a massive local audience and an emotionally connected global diaspora.

Stars like Diljit Dosanjh, Amrinder Gill, Neeru Bajwa, Ammy Virk, Sargun Mehta, Sonam Bajwa, and Gippy Grewal have become global cultural ambassadors. Platform expansion is accelerating — big names like Chaupal, Zee5, and Amazon Prime have recognized the goldmine that Punjabi content represents and are now producing Punjabi originals, not just streaming films. Even non-Punjabi viewers are joining in thanks to subtitles and dubbing options.

International collaborations are becoming the next frontier — Punjabi stories shot in Canada, the UK, and Australia, with music-driven storytelling featuring full Punjabi soundtracks. Diljit Dosanjh’s global concert tours and his crossover into Bollywood and beyond have created a cultural awareness of Punjabi identity that no marketing budget could have manufactured — and OTT platforms are riding that wave.

For any platform looking to crack international Indian audiences — particularly in the 35-million-strong Punjabi diaspora across North America, the UK, Australia, and the Gulf — Punjabi content is the single highest-ROI regional bet available today.

The road ahead
Overseas markets now account for roughly 25 percent of overall viewership for Indian OTT and digital shows — a watershed shift that validates the global ambition of regional content. The old assumption that regional stories don’t travel has been thoroughly disproved.

The winners in India’s regional OTT race will be platforms and players who understand that India is not one market, but dozens of deeply passionate ones — each with its own narrative sensibility, humour, music, and emotional grammar. The platforms that speak those languages authentically, invest in original storytelling, partner smartly with telecom, and serve the diaspora as a premium audience will define the next decade of Indian streaming.

Regional OTT is no longer the underdog story. It is the main event.