Inside India's Podcast Revolution

The rising popularity of podcasting has made India the third largest listening market in the world. Considered still in its infancy, the Indian podcast industry is drawing attention from brands and has created its own set of influencers who are as popular as they get

- Nandini Keshari

Jishan Anjum started listening to podcasts five years ago, when the audio format had just begun to pick up the pace. Now hooked to them, the 23-year-old public relations professional listens to podcasts on his way to work on weekdays and at home on weekends. His favourites are history podcasts, like Empire by William Dalrymple and Anita Anand, but he also listens to the ones on business, and occasionally satire. “Listening to my favourite authors and influencers talk in a casual environment keeps me hooked,” says Anjum.

India, with 57.6 million monthly listeners as per the data up to 2019, was the third-largest podcast-listening market in the world after China and the US, according to PWC’s Global Entertainment & Media Outlook 2020–24 report. The report called India “the sleeping giant of the global podcast market”, noting that the country would see “strong increase at a 30.4% CAGR in its monthly podcast listener base” from 2020 to 2024, with simultaneous increase in advertisement revenue.

The excitement around podcasts, which are digital audio programmes, has been intensifying over the past few years. Global services and advisory firm KPMG predicted that the podcast-listening market in India was expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 34.5% to reach a valuation of ₹17.62 crore by 2023.

In this growing market of podcasts, Covid-19 pandemic emerged as a boon for the industry. News reports support this argument, citing a KPMG report that suggested that India’s podcast consumption increased by 29.3% in the first year of the pandemic. The trend continued in 2022 as well. A survey conducted by podcast network IVM Podcasts–Pratilipi in association with mobile research platform InMobi Pulse and InMobi group-owned Glance indicates that 81% of podcast listeners heard their first podcasts in 2022.