India's digital media market has crossed ₹1 lakh crore in CY25 and is projected to grow rapidly through CY28, while television revenue declines significantly. According to The Economic Times, digital media revenue reached approximately ₹1.11 lakh crore in CY25 and is expected to grow at a compound annual rate of 14% to ₹1.64 lakh crore by CY28. In contrast, television revenue is projected to decline at an annual rate of 5%, falling from ₹61,700 crore in CY25 to ₹53,500 crore in CY28. This structural shift is creating substantial opportunities for technology and visual-effects companies as digital subscriptions gain momentum. The transformation is accelerating globally, with digital media's global ad revenue share projected to reach 80% by 2029, up from around 72% in 2024, as reported by ICICI Securities.
ICICI Securities has initiated coverage on Prime Focus Ltd. with a 'Buy' rating and target price of ₹375, implying an upside of 22% from current market levels. However, the stock faced initial pressure, falling 1.95% in Monday's trade before recovering to trade 0.52% lower at ₹305.5 as of 12:40 p.m. on NSE. According to reports from NDTV Profit, this coverage represents the brokerage's assessment of Prime Focus as a key beneficiary of evolving content consumption trends in the Indian market. 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. As per Moneycontrol, the research report was dated September 06, 2026, and the brokerage initiated with a BUY rating and target price of ₹375 using their 3-stage DCF model (implied EV/EBITDA of 17.5x FY28E).
The brokerage highlighted that digital advertising stood at ~63% of the total Indian ad market in CY25, up from ~56% in CY24, as reported by FICCI-EY report. Majority of these digital advertising spends are currently captured by global social media giants like Google and Meta. Within the listed universe, ICICI Securities identified Prime Focus and Amagi Media Labs as two key beneficiaries of these trends. The structural transformation in movie budgets is particularly significant, with the proportion of visual effects in movie budgets rising from 5-20% to 20-40% in tentpole productions globally, creating substantial opportunities for Prime Focus to capitalize on. According to Moneycontrol, post-COVID, global audiences have become more demanding with regard to the experiential aspect of what they watch in theatres, creating structural changes in budget allocation. The broader Indian advertising market also gained momentum, expanding 13.5% in 2025 to ₹1.5 trillion, exceeding the media and entertainment industry's roughly 9% growth and nominal per-capita GDP growth of 7.7%.
According to the brokerage report, while social media and streaming giants are well-tracked, the analysis focuses on uncovering content consumption trends likely to unfold in the future. The report emphasizes the need to size these opportunities and understand the businesses and ecosystems that are likely to drive this evolution within the Indian media landscape. Post-Covid-19, global audiences have become more demanding with regard to the experiential aspect of what they watch in theatres, creating structural changes in budget allocation and benefiting companies like Prime Focus that specialize in visual effects and experiential content creation. The analysis identifies eight emerging trends shaping India's media industry, including expansion of influencer marketing, return of theatrical-first film releases, growing adoption of programmatic advertising, rising popularity of audio storytelling, and India's growing role as a global capability-centre hub for content production.
ICICI Securities initiated coverage on Amagi Media Labs with a 'Buy' rating and target price of ₹700, indicating an upside of 24% from its reference price of ₹563. As reported by The Economic Times, Amagi provides cloud-based technology that helps broadcasters create, distribute and monetise content. The brokerage estimates that shifting from on-premise infrastructure to Amagi's cloud platform could lower clients' technology costs by 30-50%. The company's net revenue retention rate of over 125% indicates that revenue from existing customers can grow by more than 25% through cross-selling and upselling. Only around 10% of global media operations currently run on the cloud, leaving substantial growth opportunity for Amagi.
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, demonstrating strong business stability. The company's Brahma AI unit provides additional growth potential through tools for digital-human creation and voice and visual localisation. DNEG has won 8 Oscars in the last 15 years (3 in the last 5) and is a key partner for the largest global production houses. According to Moneycontrol, Brahma AI has proprietary models such as ATMAN (photorealistic digital human) and VAANI (voice and visual localisation engine), helping it diversify its client base beyond the M&E industry and has material optionality. The recently announced fund raise could help reduce their debt burden, creating room for further re-rating. ICICI Securities valued Prime Focus using a discounted cash-flow model, with the target implying 17.5 times estimated FY28 EV-to-EBITDA.
