The Indian media and entertainment (M&E) industry is one of the fastest growing industries in the country. Its various segments—film, television, advertising, print media, music and digital among others—has witnessed tremendous growth in the last few years.
Democratic India has had a long history of print news; the first newspaper was founded more than 230 years ago. The government's Registrar of Newspapers in India lists more than 82,000 newspapers. Nearly 33,000 of these are in Hindi, the language spoken by 41 percent of India's 1.2 billion people. The printing industry of India is highly fragmented. Newspapers and magazine publishing section have the large printers apart from a few in package, label and commercial printing. About 77% of the printing houses are family-owned.
Print Media and TV are likely to stay the biggest subscribers to the marketing pie in 2018 at the same time. With more than 70k newspapers printed in India, approximately 90 percent are printed in Hindi and also in other vernacular languages.
At a time when newspapers across the globe are dying, India’s Rs30, 000-crore ($4.48 billion) print media industry is set to grow by 8% annually for the next three years. Vernacular or local language print media will grow at 10-12% in fiscal 2017, according to a report by India Ratings and Research, a credit ratings agency and a unit of Fitch Ratings. This growth rate will be higher than that of the English language print media, it said, without specifying exact numbers. The India Ratings report also says that the circulation revenue among vernacular print media is estimated to grow 8-10% in the 2017 fiscal.
From 2002 inwards the government allowed foreign investment. Foreign investors can now invest up to 26% in daily newspapers and 100% in scientific or other publications with government approval. Printing sector has evolved from a manufacturing industry into a service industry in India of late. Publishing have come up to the international standards as well. Most of the large printers are found in big cities of Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai, and Sivakasi, which has emerged as a commercial printing hub and accounts for a major share of exports from the Indian printing industry.
The readership of print media is likely to increase further as the Indian Government is targeting to achieve the universal literacy goal by 2060.
Currently printing sector is all set to become booming in India due to available technology, resource at a very economical cost. Also government is encouraging foreign direct investment into this sector. Lot of MNC's are expected to invest in this sector due to favorable working conditions. There are numerous jobs are expected in this industry due to overall growing percentage of 12% per annum. World-wide, the annual revenue of the printing industry is over $600-Billion.
