Telecom content spends rise in FY25 with Jio in lead
Jio Platforms
' sharp ramp-up, even as
Bharti Airtel
and
Vodafone Idea
reduced their budgets. Collectively, the three companies spent ₹1,676 crore on content in FY25, compared with ₹1,335 crore in FY24 and ₹1,516 crore in FY23. According to its annual filing, Jio Platforms' content costs surged 153% to ₹915 crore in FY25 from ₹362 crore in FY24.
Reliance Jio Infocomm
, a subsidiary of Jio Platforms, had struck a content deal with JioHotstar to launch
cricket packs
around the Champions Trophy and Indian Premier League (IPL).
Airtel's standalone content costs fell to ₹529 crore in FY25 from ₹636 crore the previous year, while
Vodafone Idea
cut its spend to ₹232 crore from ₹337 crore.
In FY24, content investments had fallen 12% year-on-year to ₹1,335 crore, largely because Vodafone Idea's spend fell 49% to ₹337 crore. Jio Platforms' content costs had risen 74% to ₹362 crore in FY24, while Airtel's declined 2.3% to ₹636 crore. Experts said telecom companies are recalibrating their content strategies, with over-the-top (OTT) services continuing to play a key role in customer acquisition and retention. The variation in spending points to a two-track approach in the sector, they said.
Reliance Jio, with its integrated content offering through JioHotstar under Reliance Industries' JioStar, is focusing on premium sports and entertainment to enhance subscriber engagement and encourage data usage. The company aggregates content in India through partnerships with several platforms. Airtel and Vodafone Idea, meanwhile, appear to be prioritising cost management through performance-linked agreements. Airtel continues to bundle third-party OTTs through its postpaid, broadband, and prepaid plans, hosting more than 22 platforms on its OTT aggregation service Airtel Xstream. The company has strengthened its partnerships with Netflix, Prime Video, JioHotstar, ZEE5, Sun NXT, and Apple TV+ to expand premium and regional offerings.
Airtel Xstream
now has more than five million paid customers. During the recent Q1 earnings call,
Bharti Airtel
vice-chairman Gopal Vittal said the company had "strengthened the entertainment experience for our prepaid customers by launching (an) all-in-one OTT entertainment pack with access to over 25 OTT platforms."
"We have a partnership with Amazon, we have a partnership with Disney, we have a partnership with Netflix, we have a partnership with Zee and we are exclusively available on Apple," he added.
In its annual report, Vodafone Idea said it had relaunched Vi Movies & TV as a paid subscription service, targeting Smart TV users, integrating 17 OTT partners, including Disney+ Hotstar, SonyLiv, ZEE5, and regional players like Chaupal and Klikk, along with 350+ TV channels. It also offers bundled plans with Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Zee.
"During the year, the company continued to steadily build a long-term competitive edge by deepening customer engagement and enabling a rich digital ecosystem that includes Vi Movies & TV, Vi Games, eSports, CloudPlay, and a growing digital marketplace," non-executive chairman Ravinder Takkar said in the company's annual report. "These offerings not only cater to the evolving digital consumption patterns but also strengthen brand stickiness and loyalty."
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