TOTAL LICENSING
INDIA
Current Trends in the Licensing Industry 2021
By Rutika Malaviya Founder & Editor-In-Chief, Rooh Entertainment | Licensing Corner Mumbai, India rutika@roohentertainment. com www.roohentertainment.com www.licensingcorner.com
No points for guessing that the product licensing community has suffered due to the sudden advent of the COVID 19 pandemic.There has been a dramatic shift in the consumer’s buying patterns and businesses have struggled to keep up with the trends. 2021 is the light at the end of the tunnel, experts suggest that the economy will bounce back to normal after the second wave subsides and Licensing Corner believes brand licensing market size will significantly grow. The global market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 4.5% between 2020 and 2025. This means that licensing enterprises will remain exciting spaces to work in. Despite 2020 being a slow year in terms of revenue growth, licensing deals, issues concerning the overstocks due to lockdown and other restrictions, there are few trends that have stuck through the pandemic.
CURRENT STATE OF THE INDUSTRY We have all witnessed a paradigm shift in the way customers purchase products. Consumer spending is slowly increasing as the economy begins to reopen. From 14 INR trillion in the second quarter of 2020 to 17 INR trillion in the third quarter to now 22 trillion rupees in the first quarter of 2021, spending is only increasing. The earlier dip in numbers could be explained due
80
to the lockdown and the surge of COVID cases in India. After the steep fall in private consumption, the situation is only going to get better. In the first quarter of 2021, we saw new licensing projects being undertaken and the industry beginning to flourish. Today, every industry has adopted brand licensing, collaborations and extensions to earn an extra source of revenue and explore more ways to attract consumers. This trend is especially more apparent in the digital space.
Content Licensing Indian digital media is set to grow at 20% to reach a market size of 18,938 crores by 2021. Experts believe that by 2022, it will be over 70,000 crores with a CAGR of 11.59%. With digital media growing at such an exponential rate, it will only give rise to content creators and influencers. Today content creators can reach any brand’s ideal audience without being too salesy or preachy. A testimony of the growing popularity of influencers is google searches, in the last three years there has seen a 1500% increase in
the number of google searches for influencer marketing. The global influencer market is valued at 7.68 billion dollars and is only expected to grow. With good reach on social media, influencers can negotiate not only when it comes to sponsorship or brand deals, but also royalties and launching their own collection. In the last year alone, we have witnessed a stupendous growth of social media use and individual creators. Influencer marketing remains a lucrative option for brands across all niches. The crux of the influencer culture is that individual licenses will continue to grow. Big creators can now give permission to brands to use their content in projects. The Samai Raina
