Covid-19 lockdown: Demand for Netflix, WhatsApp, Zoom and other OTT services witness major growth among Indians

Since most of us are confined to our homes due to Covid-19 lockdown, naturally, the use of Over-The-Top (OTT) services have gone up. However, according to a recent report by Gurugram-headquartered tech company Bobble AI, the growth is more than what one would expect. Other than the video streaming services, people are also using more educational and fitness apps than ever.

While this is just one part of it, the report adds that video conferencing apps including Hangouts, Google Duo and controversial apps like Houseparty and Zoom have reportedly seen a rise of 71% when it comes to average time spent. They have also witnessed around 104% increase in the active user count, as per the report.

The company says that it has found these numbers from the anonymised and aggregated insights collected on their platforms after and during the COVID-19 outbreak in India.

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Houseparty is said to have witnessed a massive increase of 215.97% in time spent and a spike of 8,142.55% in active users. On the hand, Zoom has seen an increase of 141.69% in time spent and an 85.43% increase in engagement rate. As for the active user count, the vid eo conferencing app has witnessed 2,542.23% increase.

Services like Hotstar, Amazon Prime and Netflix have seen an 82.63% increase in time spent.

As per the report, fitness applications like Lose Weight at Home, Cure.fit and Home Workout have seen a 39.50% increase in time spent with a 14.72% increase in engagement rate and 104.53% increase in daily active users. 'Lose Weight at Home' in particular saw 46.98% increase in time spent and 49.33% increase in active users.

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E-learning services including Udemy, Unacademy and Byjus achieved around 82.73% increase in time spent, 122.62% increase in engagement and 25.12% increase in daily active users.

Lastly, the social media apps have also seen a growth in time spent, engagement and daily active user count.

As per Bobble AI, Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Twitter saw a 46.28% hike in time spent, 49.23% increase in engagement and 29.55% increase in daily active users. Facebook's WhatsApp witnessed 57.64% increase in time and 49% increase in engagement followed by Instagram with 50.30% rise in engagement.

With inputs from IANS.