Indian listeners warm up to Podcasts, as creators provide in vernacular language

As per the recently published PWC report on Global Media and Entertainment Outlook 2019-2023, Podcast listening has increased by 57.6% in India, with the monthly listers surging from 25.4 mn in 2017 to 40 mn by end of 2018. This has made India the world’s third-largest podcast-listening market, after China and the US. Growth is set to continue with listener numbers set to increase at a 34.5% CAGR to 176.1mn by 2023. With India’s large English-speaking demographic, it is no surprise that international English-language content producers like the National Public Radio, U.S.A and the BBC, UK, are creating customized content that connects with the Indian urban listeners.

On the non-English-language front, Google Podcasts has developed a “creator program” to support the creation of local content in the market in Hindi, Tamil, and Bengali, as well as in Marwari, a predominantly spoken language. Acknowledging the contribution and focus of Agrahyah Technologies, the PWC report also highlighted aawaz.com amongst leading Non-English language audio content provider in India, talking about the varied genre of offerings. Launched in January 2019, Agrahyah's aawaz.com has already gained popularity among the Indian Hindi language listeners and is paving the way for popularising the audio platform among Indian rural and urban masses by offering varied content, featuring general entertainment, lifestyle, health, and fiction, in Hindi.