I’ve been in Mumbai for nearly three months and there is one thing that really differs from the UK when it comes to media: Print. My predecessor in Edelman Mumbai, Darius Razgaitis, had similar observations when comparing India to the U.S. Almost two years later, the health of the Indian newspaper industry remains remarkably robust. So, here is an update:

Ed Amory guest-writing for The Guardian tells us “the long-term trend for print is irreversibly downwards” in the UK. The well documented decline of print in the UK indicates the huge shift in reader preference towards online content, compounded by declines in advertising revenue.

We’re in the communications marketing industry, which emphasises the importance of the integrated campaign. But for now, there’s no denying the argument for putting weight behind print in India is compelling.

Print in India grew by 5.8 percent in the period between 2014 to 2015, according to a recent report by the Registrar of Newspapers of India. There were 5,783 newly registered publications and the collective daily circulation of Indian newspapers is estimated to be a whopping 510,521, 445. That’s over half a billion people.

With 22 official languages spoken across the country, there is no one size fits all. Regional newspapers hold significant sway. The RNI report shows that nearly 260 million newspaper copies are circulated in Hindi everyday; English comes in at a (distant) second at 62 million copies, followed by Urdu at 41 million. Then there are the Gujarati, Marathi, Bengali papers, to name a few. In England you mostly just get English.

News organisations the world over trade on a critical currency: there is always demand to know what’s going on, what’s news – in your own language, in your own way. It becomes a question of producing quality, engaging supply.

But there is also the question of necessity. Newspapers are cheap, can be passed from person to person and come every day without fail – except during the terrible floods in Chennai, when The Hindu was forced to suspend publication for the first time since 1878. Against the odds and unlike the other markets, India’s print industry appears to be thriving.

Having said that, at the end of 2015 India surpassed its one-billionth mobile phone subscription. An Ericsson report from June last year estimates 750 million smartphone subscriptions in India by 2020. India already has 700 million digitally native millennials who’ve never known a world without internet or mobile – and preferences are changing.

Readers are pushing to see innovative content, delivered at speed.  Less than a year ago, The Quint, a mobile-driven, Indian news outlet launched and has had a huge uptake. We continue to see the stratospheric rise of ‘citizen journalism’ on social media and a preference to trust in content shared by our peers.

But there are swathes of the nation where mobile penetration remains low. Print media still has enormous influence. The industry looks resilient – for now.

Charlotte Paton is a Daniel J. Edelman Global Fellow originally from Edelman London and currently based in Edelman Mumbai.

Kat Northern Lights Man