YouTube is winning emerging markets by being social – and format-flexible

In English-speaking markets (and much of Europe), entertainment consumption is split across a large number of digital platforms, segmented largely by content format, rights access, and legacy uptake. It is also fragmented across devices: smart TVs, smartphones, laptops, and consoles all play big roles in their respective niches. 

Yet while these markets are plateauing into saturation, markets like India and across South America are on the rise, poised to become the biggest places for growth moving forward. There, the situation is quite different.

Mobile-first culture is the key to YouTube’s dominance

Looking specifically at India, YouTube is by and far the king of entertainment consumption. From taxi drivers playing Bollywood music videos hosted on YouTube through tablets stuck to dashboards, to sports games cast via the YouTube app to smart TVs, to watching SonyLIV shows on the official YouTube channel, other platforms are relegated to infrequent and specific use cases (such as cricket tournaments through Jio). The only other platforms that get a similar amount of  use are social media, with Instagram and WhatsApp the most prevalent. 

A driving force behind this is device. In ‘Western’ markets, televisions were followed by PCs, followed by the eventual uptake of smartphones. In India, however, smartphones were the first devices to truly have mainstream reach across a massive population with uneven economic and infrastructural circumstances. It is not uncommon to watch a casual passerby on the street pulling out one, two, three phones from their pockets like a magician performing a magic trick while hunting for the source of a notification. 

Microtransactions via QR code and payment app are also far more common than bank transfers or even card machines. A low cost or largely ad-supported online experience has shaped expectations of what – and how – to pay for entertainment. As a result, the combination is a population that is mobile-first and subscription-reticent. In this context, traditional streaming straggles while YouTube thrives – as do free-to-play mobile games and social apps. 

Something similar is happening in South America, driving the unique behaviour of Spanish-speaking markets. They resemble unique ecosystems, driven by YouTube, Twitch, and other mobile apps. Three of the top five Twitch accounts are Spanish speaking – but more strikingly, accounts like LOUD_CORINGA can harness a level of engagement and hype that English-speaking top streamers struggle to replicate. A mobile-first online experience has put socially-driven entertainment consumption front and centre. There are clear impacts across music as well, with genres like Reggaeton / Latin trap experiencing a rise on YouTube and in the casual live scene before spreading like wildfire worldwide. 

Why traditional streaming struggles and social thrives in emerging markets

The result (and the point): English-driven Western markets behave very differently from other-language emerging ones. Old industry demarcations of social versus video versus music versus games do not exist in the same way, and are not considered relevant by consumers or creators. Instead, mobile-driven consumption blends everything together, layering social, music, video, games, creator content and studio content all together in what legacy companies would consider baffling – if not sacrilegious. Old rights systems and remuneration struggle to keep up, and meanwhile, new creators keep creating, and audiences keep engaging. The wheel keeps turning in an explosion of creativity and growth, while legacy organisations wring their hands in confusion. Adaptation is made even more challenging by the fact that these new methods of consumption are, by default, hyper-fragmented and localised; algorithms can serve users according to dialect and any other kind of preference. Creating mainstream hits is hard in the English-speaking West – it becomes even harder to do so from the outside in, to markets defined by fragmented consumption along local and linguistic lines. 

As a secondary consequence, this also puts certain other markets – the UAE specifically – in an interesting position of importance. As an example, India’s political and historical situation makes business relations with Pakistan difficult; a challenge in a context where Pakistani music is booming in India, Indian labels want to sign Pakistani artists, and all the artists want to work together. So, they go through impartial business centres like Dubai to make the magic happen. Bans of Chinese apps in India and other countries have, similarly, not stemmed the sharing of culture, as consumers and businesses alike find neutral platforms and countries to headquarter themselves (or VPN themselves) as a workaround. As the broader geopolitical situation heats up, but businesses and economies have become more international and complex than ever, relatively impartial markets with good infrastructure and new(ish), booming economies of their own can play incredibly valuable facilitative roles. 

All this is, of course, high-level trends. Keep your eyes peeled for the full report on emerging market dynamics, as we consolidate the full spectrum of consumer data and industry interviews. However, the takeaway is twofold, even if it may seem relatively obvious: emerging markets do not look like legacy ones. And in this context, the most flexible platforms win.