India’s Rs 1 lakh crore digital-media boom: Two stocks ICICI Securities is betting on

India’s media and entertainment industry is undergoing a major shift as digital media expands rapidly while traditional television loses ground, creating new opportunities for technology and visual-effects companies.

Digital media revenue crossed the Rs 1 lakh crore mark to reach approximately Rs 1.11 lakh crore in CY25. ICICI Securities expects it to grow at a compound annual rate of 14% to Rs 1.64 lakh crore by CY28.

Television revenue, in contrast, is projected to decline at an annual rate of 5%, falling from Rs 61,700 crore in CY25 to Rs 53,500 crore in CY28.


Against this backdrop, ICICI Securities has initiated coverage on Amagi Media Labs and Prime Focus with Buy calls, identifying them as key beneficiaries of the changing media-consumption and advertising landscape.

Why is digital media pulling ahead?

Digital advertising accounted for around 63% of India’s overall advertising market in CY25, up from 56% in the previous year. Spending is being supported by rising internet penetration, wider 5G adoption, short-form videos and the increasing use of data-driven advertising.

Programmatic advertising, which uses software to automate the purchase and placement of advertisements, has also expanded rapidly. Its share of digital advertising increased from 10% in CY16 to 42%, or around Rs 30,000 crore, in CY25. It is projected to reach Rs 42,400 crore by CY27.

Digital subscriptions are gaining momentum as well. Total subscription revenue across video, audio and digital news increased nearly 60% to Rs 16,300 crore in CY25, helped by premium sports and film content moving behind paywalls.

Meanwhile, linear television revenue declined 9% during CY25. Advertising revenue fell by around 10%, while subscriptions declined 8% following the loss of 11 million pay-TV households.

Connected television has emerged as a beneficiary of this transition. Weekly active connected-TV households increased from 30 million in CY24 to 40 million in CY25 and are projected to reach 67 million by CY28.

Eight emerging trends shaping content consumption in India

ICICI Securities identified eight trends that could shape India’s media industry: the expansion of influencer marketing, the return of theatrical-first film releases, growing adoption of programmatic advertising, rising popularity of audio storytelling, the emergence of mobile-first microdramas, the migration of real-money gaming users to other entertainment platforms, a recovery in global animation and VFX demand, and India’s growing role as a global capability-centre hub for content production and post-production.

ICICI Securities’ two media-tech picks

Amagi Media Labs

ICICI Securities initiated coverage on Amagi with a ‘Buy’ rating and a target price of Rs 700, indicating an upside of 24% from its reference price of Rs 563.

Amagi provides cloud-based technology that helps broadcasters create, distribute and monetise content. Only around 10% of global media operations currently run on the cloud, according to the report, leaving the company with a substantial growth opportunity.

The brokerage estimates that shifting from on-premise infrastructure to Amagi’s cloud platform could lower clients’ technology costs by 30-50%. Its net revenue retention rate of over 125% also indicates that revenue from existing customers can grow by more than 25% through cross-selling and upselling.

ICICI Securities expects Amagi’s adjusted EBITDA margin to improve from 10.3% in FY26 to 18.7% in FY28. Its AI-based scheduling, content-reframing and advertisement-optimisation products could further support revenue and margins.

Prime Focus

ICICI Securities initiated coverage on Prime Focus with a ‘Buy’ rating and a target price of Rs 375, implying an upside of 22% from its reference price of Rs 307.

The brokerage expects the company to benefit from rising VFX spending, with visual effects now accounting for 20-40% of the budgets of major films, compared with 5-20% earlier.

Prime Focus subsidiary DNEG had an order book of approximately $1 billion as of March 2026, with 60% contracted and the remaining 40% comprising a highly visible pipeline. More than 90% of its revenue comes from recurring customers.

Its Brahma AI unit provides additional growth potential through tools for digital-human creation and voice and visual localisation. ICICI Securities valued Prime Focus using a discounted cash-flow model, with the target implying 17.5 times estimated FY28 EV-to-EBITDA.

This article has been written by Somanjali Das, who is not a SEBI-registered Research Analyst or an investment advisor. Somanjali Das does not hold any financial interest in Prime Focus and Amagi Media Labs as of the date of publication. The views/recommendations mentioned in this article, wherever applicable, are those of the respective SEBI-registered Research Analyst/brokerage and have been reproduced/reported with due attribution. They should not be construed as the views or recommendations of the EconomicTimes Digital or the journalist. Readers are advised to consider the original research report and make their investment decisions based on their own assessment.