YouTube will invest more than INR 850 crore in India over the next two years to help local content creators, artists, and media companies, CEO Neal Mohan announced today at the World Audio Visual and Entertainment Summit (WAVES) 2025.
This investment is part of YouTube’s effort to strengthen its presence in India, which CEO Neal Mohan called a “creator nation.” He shared that over 100 million Indian channels uploaded content last year, and 15,000 now have over 1 million subscribers, up from 11,000 just a few months ago. Mohan also mentioned that Indian content had 45 billion hours of global watch time last year.
The top executive at YouTube also mentioned that the platform has paid INR 21,000 crore to Indian creators over the past three years.
He also added that India’s growing creator economy and global reach make it a key market for YouTube.
“YouTube’s ability to connect a creator anywhere with audiences EVERYWHERE has made it a powerful engine of cultural export, and few nations have leveraged this as effectively as India. Today, India isn’t just a world leader for film and music – it’s rapidly becoming what I’m excited to call a Creator Nation,” Mohan added.
India’s creator community is one of the fastest growing worldwide, with over 4 million online stars. This has helped create a booming e-commerce market driven by influencers, with 294 million online shoppers. In addition, brands from beauty to electronics are teaming up with digital creators to boost their growth.
Earlier this March, the government announced a $1 billion fund to support the creator economy. In December last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi also highlighted how vital the creator economy is for helping India become a $5 trillion economy.
While opening WAVES 2025, Prime Minister Modi said that now is the perfect time to “create in India, create for the world.”
The Prime Minister said, “This is the dawn of the orange economy in India,” and mentioned that content, creativity, and culture are the three main pillars of this economy.
Last year, the Union cabinet approved a plan to set up a National Centre of Excellence (NCoE) for animation, visual effects, gaming, comics, and extended reality (AVGC-XR).
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