Mumbai: As Asia’s leading entertainment and technology summit APOS 2026 got underway in Bali, YouTube outlined its vision for India’s rapidly evolving video ecosystem, highlighting the country’s growing influence across creators, commerce, Connected TV (CTV), and sports fandom.
According to Gunjan Soni, Country Managing Director, YouTube, India’s video landscape is undergoing a structural transformation, with Connected TV emerging as a major growth engine and creators increasingly shaping consumer behavior and economic value creation.
Speaking at the summit, Soni said, “YouTube is now India’s prime-time screen, where internet authenticity meets cinematic quality on the largest canvas in the home. YouTube has collapsed the distance between different video formats and different entertainment ecosystems, bringing them all onto India’s largest screen. We are scaling our CTV presence by connecting a fluid multi-format viewer journey with a completely diversified slate of premium content.”
The company positioned Connected TV as one of its fastest-growing consumption surfaces in India, reflecting changing audience habits as users increasingly move seamlessly across Shorts, long-form video, podcasts, and live experiences.
Beyond entertainment consumption, YouTube highlighted the growing intersection of content and commerce. According to YouTube, creator influence and audience trust are accelerating purchase decisions and reshaping digital shopping journeys.
Soni noted, “The Content-to-Commerce Flywheel is already taking off in a big way in India. Our unique approach relies on turbocharging the existing user needs and their trust in creators’ recommendations. A whopping 200 million logged in users searched for shopping content on YouTube last year.”
The company indicated that creator-led recommendations and product discovery are becoming increasingly central to how consumers evaluate and make purchase decisions online.
YouTube also underlined the broader economic contribution of India’s creator ecosystem, positioning it as an emerging force in both domestic growth and global cultural influence.
Soni said, “India’s creative economy has matured into a vital macroeconomic pillar that drives national GDP while actively reshaping global pop culture in real time. Fueling domestic economic mobility – by investing and growing the creator economy and scaling global export power both matter equally to YouTube. India represents the blueprint for how a digital creator economy achieves institutional scale.”
The company emphasized that independent creators are evolving into full-fledged media businesses and digital intellectual properties, expanding beyond content creation into entrepreneurship and audience ownership.
Addressing the media and entertainment industry, Soni reinforced YouTube’s positioning as a collaborative platform for broadcasters, studios, and premium content owners adapting to changing viewing behaviors.
She stated, “YouTube has always been an indispensable, collaborative growth partner for our media and entertainment partners. The shift of audiences toward Connected TV and the deepening fandom on YouTube is a massive opportunity to expand the entire commercial pie and give premium entertainment content a highly profitable, multi-layered lifecycle.”
According to Soni, YouTube’s approach to scaling entertainment on connected screens is anchored around three operating priorities: the 360-degree promotional flywheel, revenue diversification and expanding distribution, and format modernization.
Sports emerged as another major focus area during the discussion, with YouTube highlighting year-round engagement patterns that extend far beyond live match windows.
Soni said, “YouTube owns the high-intent sports conversation 365 days a year, much before the match begins and long after the final whistle blows. YouTube is at the epicenter of sports and pop culture, and our unique value lies in being the absolute “infinite stadium” for fandom. We achieve this by connecting deep, creator-led storytelling with official global partnerships to capture every layer of fan passion. This continuous curiosity loop has driven a massive surge in views on creator-led cricket content on YouTube exploding to 190 billion last year.”
The commentary at APOS 2026 reflects YouTube’s broader strategy of positioning India not only as a high-growth market, but also as a model for how creator economies, commerce, premium entertainment, and digital communities converge at scale.
