At the end of 2017, India's 7.2% economic growth rate overtook China as the world's fastest developing nation. With $6 billion revenue in 2016, India is also a key driver behind Asia Pacific's success as the world's second largest professional audio and video (proAV) industry. By 2022, the APAC proAV market will have an estimated value of $63.96 billion, a close second to the Americas ($67.13 billion). While China and Japan will continue to play a central role in Asia's growth, India will reach $8.6 billion by 2022.
This proAV market growth in India is fostered in part by central government initiatives including “Digital India”, which is accelerating the deployment of broadband with an aim to each 600 million people by 2022. Improved connectivity is helping to enable IP video solutions to seamlessly deliver content to staff in multiple locations and provide unified internal communications for international organisations. As the nation continues its transition towards a more digitally-focused economy, the importance and pace of the ongoing proAV revolution shows no sign of slowing down anytime soon.
In addition to the sheer size of its local proAV market, India is also one of the leading adopters of new technologies. This position can be partly attributed to the number of international companies entering the market and employing local engineers and support teams. However, what underpins both trends is a larger segment of the workforce moving from agricultural to manufacturing and increasingly service-related tasks that require specific knowledge. From financial services to hospitality, healthcare and transport, technology is becoming an integral part of everyday life for most Indians.
Enabling quicker business decision
To support areas like financial services, India is increasingly turning to digital technologies that empower key decision makers. This is generating significant investment in IP-based technologies at leading firms, including Thomson Reuters India, part of the world's largest source of news and information for professional markets.
With eight regional offices across major Indian business centres, Thomson Reuters India delivers services that enable professionals in the financial and risk, legal, tax and accounting and media markets to make crucial business decisions. In 2017, the firm deployed an Exterity IP video system that uses its existing IP network to stream live television from all over the world, enabling staff to watch real-time, breaking news channels, as well as recorded and internal content, in a convenient way to a virtually unlimited number of local desktop users.
Thomson Reuters is just one of several leading businesses that have deployed or enhanced IP based video services in the last few years. This trend has been supported by the dramatic rise in 4G networks deployment in India over the last decade, which has fostered remote working, especially for professionals using mobile devices.
Supporting a new era of healthcare
Another high-growth sector in India is healthcare, which is expected to grow to $280 billion by 2020 due to an increase in expenditure from public and private players. The proAV market is starting to tap into this area with demand for technologies that will empower staff to keep up to date with the latest outbreaks of disease, such as Ebola or Zika. For example, global healthcare company Sanofi, which has offices in Mumbai, uses video streaming technologies to help its teams access the latest research and business news, enabling them to learn about new viruses in detail. In a mobile context, IP video is also being trialled as an aid for remote diagnosis, with innovators such as the Apollo Telemedicine Networking Foundation having already set up around 150 centres across the country.
Digital advancement
The adoption of IP video technologies in India still has challenges. One of the biggest is the sheer size of the population spread across fragmented territories and cultures. There are discrepancies between macro-cities such as Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai and New Delhi, smaller cities and villages, which need to be considered, especially in the provision of high-speed internet needed to stream HD video. Although 4G networks are common in India's large cities, mobile video from non “zero-rated” streaming services is still expensive, which limits widespread adoption.
However, as the nation continues its transition towards a digital economy with the support of Digital India, solutions such as IP video will become commonplace not only in the corporate world and healthcare but also in hospitality, transport hubs and universities. The company like ours are already working with Indian firms such as the State Bank of India, HSBC, American Express, Nissan and Renault Offices – Chennai to help them prepare for the proAV revolution and we look forward to helping more companies in India successfully transition into a new era of digital technologies.
