They added that the estimated surge in mobile data usage during the IPL is also likely to start 5G adoption and boost appetite for mobile internet services in rural India where television penetration is relatively modest.
“If the tournament is free for viewing across mobile networks, it will definitely cause a 10-15% spike in data usage, given that watching both IPL matches a day on mobile will use 3GB-4GB data,” an analyst at a leading global brokerage said.
Sports18, a channel under the Viacom18 portfolio, has the digital broadcast rights to the IPL. JioCinema, the video streaming app originally under Reliance Jio, has been merged with Viacom18—a JV between Reliance Industries and US media house Viacom.
The IPL cricket tournament is likely to follow last year’s schedule, with two matches on most days. “Since both matches will have some overlap with commuting time for a lot of viewers, consumption on mobile is a given,” said another analyst.
Since the live IPL action via the JioCinema app can also be accessed on all mobile networks, it would also allow Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea (Vi) to introduce cricket/IPL-led data packs to boost digital consumption.
Industry executives agreed that while Vi and Airtel don’t have live streaming rights to the T20 extravaganza, they could use JioCinema’s push to grab more eyeballs and accelerate data consumption. At press time, Jio, Airtel and Vi did not respond to ET’s queries.
Analysts also expect free IPL streaming to drive faster 5G adoption.
“We expect RIL to further enhance the features and expect few features to be exclusively available only on Jio’s 5G (platform)… we have seen this in Korea, US during baseball games… and this may help Jio’s 5G uptake,” BofA Securities said.
But some analysts said the IPL impact on 5G adoption may be limited as there are only 100-150 million 5G smartphones in the market and many who use such devices already have connected TVs and might want to catch the live cricket action on the big screen.
But a KPMG report says the IPL tourney could be leveraged by telcos to boost mobile data consumption in rural India where television penetration is estimated at 61%. In these areas, content consumption has spiked through OTT (video streaming) on mobile, as more rural customers upgrade to smartphones.
“Pricing will be key here… there will be a need to balance out demand for streaming with affordability, or rather the consumers’ willingness to pay extra to consume live sports on the mobile,” said one of the analysts cited.
Industry experts said calendar 2023 will be about getting people further hooked to the JioCinema platform as was the case last year during the FIFA football World Cup.
“The FIFA world cup streaming was a test bed to understand the issues at Jio apps and fix it before the IPL launch, especially if it needs to cater to 500mn+ users,” said BofA.
Free live streaming of the IPL via the JioCinema app is estimated to reach some 500 million viewers, the highest for the tournament on any platform. Making it free for consumption also makes it easier for JioCinema to get more advertisers on board.
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