Based on a report by Semrush in January of this year, two adult domains, xvideos.com and xnxx.tv, were among the top 20 most-visited websites in India. Why? Because India loves adult content like the rest of the world, and it’s an untapped market.
India’s porn habits are quite intriguing. While homegrown searches like “Indian” and “Indian College Girls” remain at the top, other searches have increased recently. “Indian Hindi Audio” went up significantly, suggesting some viewers prefer listening to porn instead of watching it, while “Japanese” related searches are also prominent.
When compared to the rest of the world, Indian visitors are 723% more likely to view videos in the “Indian” category, while also being 281% more into “Romantic” and 202% more into “College” theme videos. The fastest-growing searching trends besides the aforementioned “Indian Hindi Audio” include “MILF,” “Orgasm,” “Anime” and “Femdom.”
When it comes to gender, Indian men make up 67% of porn viewers. Female viewership is only up three percent compared to 2018. This means that porn is not just for men, and women are enjoying the content.
If you break down Indian viewing habits by age, millennials make up 85% of the traffic, which parallels global viewers who are on average 36 years old.
It is not just specific categories and searches that Indians go for; many have specific preferences when it comes to porn stars, with the top-ranked ones being Sunny Leone, Mia Khalifa and Dani Daniels.
It should also be noted that India is the sixth most sexually active country globally according to market statistics, with the sex toy market peaking. According to Technavio, the sexual wellness market in India grew at an average rate of 34.8 percent per year from 2014 to 2019. It estimates that the current market size of the toy category in India is around $227.8 million compared to the global $22 billion total. The highest sold sex products are intimate massagers and lubricants. Other sex products Indians frequently put in their online carts are lingerie, lotions, delay sprays, pleasure rings and condoms.
DATING IN INDIA IS BIG MONEY
Tinder, OKCupid, and Happn are the leaders in mobile dating apps with millions of users monthly in the Indian market. Tinder has one issue: the app is overflowing with male users, and female user sign-ups and users are far lower than their male counterparts. Dating apps do account for 16% of all mobile usage by Indians.
If you look at Indian money spent on dating apps, Tinder is the leader. Overall, Indian commerce grew exponentially from 2020 to 2021 with the annual change of a 34.3% yearly increase in digitally- enabled consumer payments.
WEBCAMMING IS A GROWING INDUSTRY IN INDIA
Pornography is considered to be a serious crime in India, but camming is legal. India’s top cam sites are Stripchat, Chaturbate, Uncams, LiveDotski, Camstank and Hotsex.com. More and more Indian couples are live-streaming sex for quick money and are paid through cryptocurrency in tips or tokens. It’s estimated that 2,000 couples are providing content to multiple adult portals. There’s also a huge demand for Indian content. In one day, a couple can make anywhere from $473 to $812. This has also led to a rise in Indian cam sites, like Delhi Sex Chat. Around 95.61% of the traffic is from India, so the majority of its visitors are Indian. There’s also an international tab to interact with foreigners aged 19 to 40.
PAYMENTS AND E-COMMERCE IN INDIA
The Indian e-commerce industry has been on an upward trajectory and is expected to surpass the U.S. to become the second-largest e-commerce market in the world by 2034. The Indian e-commerce sector will reach $99 billion by 2024, up from $30 billion in 2019. This transformation has been led by the emergence of e-tail and its growing influence on Indian shoppers and their need to shop online. COVID shaped the market for online commerce, with 60% of consumers expected to shift to online shopping beyond the pandemic. Global players are making considerable investments in Indian e-tail, including Facebook and Google.
With the growing economy and rise in e-commerce business in India, it’s become impossible to meet the market transaction requirements through standard payment techniques, so new payment methods were needed. According to GlobalData, India is one of the world’s leaders in mobile banking. Overall, the global proportion of frequent mobile banking users witnessed a 3% growth from 39% in 2017 to 42% in 2018. Around 67 million payments were processed per day in India that year — about one-eighth of China and one-seventh of the US. India is one of the fastest-growing markets in digital payments, albeit on a smaller scale.
There are seven main payment methods used in India. PayTm is a mobile-based wallet payment that allows consumers to send and receive payments in India. PayUMoney is one of the leading payment methods that allow individuals and businesses to send and receive payments.
Even unregistered businesses can do safe transactions. UPI (Unified Payments Interface) is government-sponsored and provides a consistent approach to fast, secure and cheap payments across over 140 banks and virtually all of the e-wallets in India. It launched in 2018 and grew 700% in its first year and 140% from 2019 to 2020. UPI’s acceptance across both bank transfers and e-wallets is now very high.
The use of e-wallets is also rising in India and is expected to grow by 80% in 2021. E-wallets are well on their way to becoming the dominant online payment method and must be part of any e-commerce or mobile-commerce checkout experience.
Credit card use is low and is only about 29% of Indian e-commerce, but it’s still important to offer Visa, Mastercard and the national RuPay card. Many cards in India are not approved for international purchases. Businesses who wish to sell cross-border should pursue local options for credit card payment processing and offer other locally preferred payment methods.
India also has a lot of online bank transfer options such as Netbanking, which enables users to authenticate via their bank and approve an online purchase, as well as IMPS, the instant transfer network and more traditional routes like NEFT and RTGS.
Given the low level of trust many buyers have for online sellers, cash and cash-on-delivery remain a crucial online payment method in India. After a brief spurt of government-led “demonetization,” cash has reentered the economy in a big way. Still, the growth of UPI, e-wallets and card readers for “payment on delivery” may eventually cut cash’s hold on buyer trust.
As for Certus Finance stats, India has an average of 40% approval rate for dating and webcam merchants. The fraud is less than 1%, and refunds have the same value.
Ilya Firsov has a background in the automotive, finance and various adult industries, with experience in sales, affiliate marketing and IT projects. He is currently the Head of Sales for Certus Finance and responsible for marketing and branding.
