Meta this week published findings from a series of IPSOS-commissioned studies showing that Reels has become the dominant short-form video surface for content discovery, creator engagement, and commerce across India - with 97% of surveyed users watching video on Meta platforms at least once daily, and the urban-rural gap in video engagement narrowing to just four percentage points.

The scale of India's video shift

The data, drawn from a survey of more than 4,000 respondents across 23 cities including metros, Tier 2 and Tier 3 towns, and rural areas, maps a consumption pattern that extends well beyond India's largest urban centres. According to Meta, daily video engagement on its platforms stands at 98% in urban India and 94% in rural India - a gap narrow enough to indicate near-universal adoption rather than an elite metropolitan habit.

The figure at the national level is 97%. That number encompasses Gen Z users (97% daily), women (97% daily), and NCCS A audiences - India's classification for upper-income households - at 98%. The convergence across those three demographic groups is notable. It suggests that whatever segmentation once separated premium urban audiences from the wider market has been significantly reduced, at least in terms of platform reach.

Meta does not report absolute user numbers in this study. The percentages come from the survey sample, which was structured to include respondents across urban, semi-urban, and rural geographies. The research was commissioned by Meta and conducted by IPSOS, an independent market research firm that has run comparable studies for Meta across financial services verticals in India previously documented on PPC Land.

Reels engagement by demographic group

Within the broader video picture, Reels occupies a specific role. The study positions it as the primary short-form surface for several key groups. Among Gen Z, 89% report using Reels daily. Among women, that figure is 85%. Among NCCS A audiences, it is 88%.

These numbers matter for advertisers because they correspond to segments with different purchase behaviours and category affinities. Gen Z engagement is concentrated in content discovery, trend-following, and creator-led storytelling. Women's engagement intersects heavily with beauty, fashion, and lifestyle categories. NCCS A audiences represent the highest spending tier across categories including automotive and financial services.

The study notes that 84% of Gen Z consumers discover new products and brands through Meta's platforms, according to Meta. That is a high figure, and it frames Reels as an upper-funnel entry point for a generation that has limited exposure to legacy media formats. Simultaneously, 73% of rural users discover new products and brands through Meta's platforms - a figure that indicates the platform's reach into markets that traditional advertising infrastructure has historically struggled to serve efficiently.

"India's video boom isn't urban-led anymore - it's nationwide, cutting across GenZ, women and premium audiences. Creators, culture and commerce are converging on Reels in ways we haven't seen before. For brands, this isn't just a content play - it's a always on Content-to-Commerce play. Reels are where discovery starts, trust is built, and purchase decisions are made," said Saugato Bhowmik, Director, CPG & D2C, Automotive (India) at Meta.

Content categories driving engagement

The study identifies the top content categories by engagement rate on Reels in India. Beauty and makeup lead at 52%, tied with fashion and trends also at 52%. Lifestyle and fitness follows at 42%, with comedy and humour at 39%, sports at 38%, and travel at 37%.

These categories share a common structural feature: they lend themselves to short, visually demonstrative clips that work without sustained attention. A beauty tutorial, a fashion haul, a fitness routine, a comedy sketch - each of these formats achieves its communicative purpose within 30 to 90 seconds. That alignment between content type and platform format is not coincidental. It reflects both creator adaptation and audience selection.

The creator ecosystem amplifies this dynamic. According to Meta, Reels delivers approximately 60% higher creator engagement than other short-form video platforms surveyed. The study does not name those competing platforms, but the Indian short-form landscape includes YouTube Shorts, which launched in India in September 2020 following the ban on TikTok, as well as domestic alternatives like Moj. The competitive context matters: India's short-form video market developed under unusual conditions, with TikTok's 2020 exit creating an opening that international and domestic platforms have contested for six years.

The 2024 Instagram report on Gen Z in India, published in December 2023, had already flagged that Indian Gen Z were more career-oriented and more interested in community and self-expression than their global peers - a cultural tendency that creator-led Reels content appears to be capturing effectively.

From discovery to purchase: the full-funnel data

The most commercially significant portion of the study concerns Reels' role across the consumer purchase journey. According to Meta, Reels influences 81% of product discovery, 66% of consideration, and 47% of purchase decisions among surveyed users. Each of those stages corresponds to a distinct phase of the marketing funnel, and the reported figures suggest Reels is present throughout rather than concentrated at any single point.

The 81% product discovery figure is the largest and the most frequently cited. Discovery is the stage at which consumers first encounter a product or brand, often without prior intent. The fact that Reels appears at this stage in four out of five cases - according to the study - positions it as a primary awareness vehicle. The 47% purchase influence figure is smaller but arguably more valuable to advertisers running performance campaigns, because it is closer to the transaction.

Meta previously reported 3.5 billion daily Reels shares globally, with brand lift studies showing 14% higher average brand lift and 24% higher median brand lift for campaigns using Reels ads compared to standard campaigns. The India-specific data from this IPSOS study adds a geographic layer to that global picture, showing how the format functions across a market with its own distinct socioeconomic and demographic contours.

A separate Meta and Toluna study, published in May 2026, found that specific creative variables - including early brand exposure, dynamic branding, and emoji usage - significantly amplify purchase intent on Instagram Reels across brand and direct response objectives. That study tested 100 ads against 65 coded variables and found brand presence capped at 25% of duration raises direct response purchase intent likelihood 4.8 times. Taken together, the two studies suggest that while Reels generates substantial reach and discovery, the creative execution within that format meaningfully affects commercial outcomes.

Vertical deep-dives: financial services, automotive, and e-commerce

The IPSOS study breaks out performance by category in ways that are useful for vertical-specific planning. In financial services, the findings are particularly striking given conventional assumptions about digital channels and complex products.

According to Meta, 76% of rural financial services users engage with Meta's platforms daily. This is a population that has historically been served by branch-based relationship banking, insurance agents, and word-of-mouth referral. The implication of a 76% daily engagement figure is that short-form video is now a primary channel through which rural Indians encounter financial products - whether organically through creator content or through paid advertising.

Among women who own financial products, 54% engage with creators on Meta's platforms daily. This is described in the study as one of the highest engagement rates across all audience cohorts examined. For financial services advertisers, this cohort is commercially important because women's financial product ownership in India has been a growth area and a regulatory priority, particularly in insurance and savings.

Meta mandated SEBI verification for securities and investment advertising targeting Indian users from July 2025, a policy change that added compliance requirements for financial services advertisers but also formalized the legitimacy of the channel for institutional advertisers. The verification requirement applies globally to campaigns reaching Indian users.

Automotive presents a different full-funnel pattern. According to Meta, the platform leads across the entire automotive purchase journey: discovery at 82%, consideration at 68%, and purchase at 50%. These are not small percentages for a high-consideration purchase category where consumers have traditionally researched through dealerships, print advertising, and test drives. The 50% purchase influence figure suggests that a significant portion of car buyers in India report Meta platforms as a contributing factor at the point of decision.

This finding sits alongside a broader shift in how Meta manages automotive advertising infrastructure. In March 2026, Meta announced it would end Nielsen DMA targeting in its automotive model ads product, replacing it with Comscore Markets as the geographic targeting standard. That technical change, affecting campaign delivery from June 22, 2026, reflects ongoing investment in automotive advertising as a priority vertical.

E-commerce rounds out the high-intent categories. The study positions Reels as a driver of full-path-to-purchase behaviour for online shopping, though the specific percentage figures for this category are not broken out in the published data in the same way as automotive and financial services.

What the study methodology covers - and what it does not

The survey sampled 4,000 or more respondents across 23 cities. The geographic scope - metros, Tier 2 and 3 cities, and rural areas - is broader than many platform-commissioned studies, which tend to concentrate on urban centres where digital adoption is highest and sample recruitment is easier.

The IPSOS methodology uses self-reported survey data. That means the engagement and discovery figures reflect what respondents say they do and experience, rather than directly measured platform behaviour. Platform-measured engagement data and survey-reported data can diverge in significant ways. Respondents may overreport engagement with aspirational platforms or underreport engagement with platforms they use habitually but without conscious awareness. Meta does not publish the survey instrument or the full IPSOS methodology in its public-facing materials.

The study also does not compare platforms by name in the competitive figures it cites. The claim that Reels delivers 60% higher creator engagement than "other short-form video platforms surveyed" leaves the comparator set unspecified. The 47% purchase influence claim is similarly expressed as relative to other surveyed platforms and TV - but without naming them or specifying the survey question design.

These methodological notes do not necessarily invalidate the findings, but they are relevant for anyone using the data to make media planning decisions. The figures are directionally useful; their precision should be treated with appropriate scepticism, particularly when comparing them to first-party data from other platforms.

What this means for the marketing community

For advertisers targeting Indian consumers, the study offers a geographic argument as much as a platform argument. The near-equivalence of urban and rural daily engagement rates - 98% versus 94% - means that campaigns optimised for metro audiences are now reaching rural users at close to the same frequency. That has implications for creative strategy, language choices, and the product categories being promoted.

Meta's Q1 2026 earnings, reported in April 2026, showed that ranking improvements on Instagram drove a 10% lift in Reels time spent, and that same-day posts now represent more than 30% of recommended Reels on both Instagram and Facebook - more than double the level from a year prior. The India study contextualises those platform-level improvements within a market where short-form video consumption has reached what Meta describes as a saturation level.

The creator engagement dimension is significant for brand planning. A 60% higher creator engagement rate relative to competing platforms, if accurate, means that influencer campaigns on Reels have a structural distribution advantage. Combined with the discovery and purchase influence data, this creates a case for creator-led content as a full-funnel vehicle rather than a purely upper-funnel awareness tool.

The financial services and automotive data are particularly notable because those are categories where digital advertising has historically struggled to show direct purchase influence. A 47% purchase influence figure for financial services and a 50% figure for automotive suggest that the role of social video in complex, high-consideration purchases is now measurable in India at a scale that is hard to dismiss.

PPC Land has covered Meta's India advertising strategy extensively, including the earlier IPSOS financial services study from August 2025, the SEBI verification requirements introduced for securities advertising, and the ad spend disclosure rules announced for 2027. The Reels video study released today adds a consumer behaviour layer to that regulatory and infrastructure picture, describing how Indian audiences are actually using the platform rather than how Meta is governing access to it.

Timeline

  • December 2020 - India bans TikTok and 58 other Chinese apps, opening the short-form video market to domestic and international alternatives
  • December 2023 - Instagram publishes Gen Z India culture report, surveying 5,000+ respondents across five countries; Indian Gen Z flagged as more career-oriented and community-driven than global peers - PPC Land coverage
  • January 21, 2025 - Meta expands Instagram Reels maximum video length to three minutes for US creators and introduces cash creator incentives - PPC Land coverage
  • June 26, 2025 - Meta begins rollout of SEBI verification requirements for securities and investment advertising targeting Indian users
  • July 31, 2025 - Meta mandates SEBI verification enforcement for India securities ads - PPC Land coverage
  • July 30, 2025 - Meta reports 22% advertising revenue growth, reaching $46.6 billion - PPC Land coverage
  • August 7, 2025 - Meta releases "From Feeds to Financial Futures" IPSOS study on financial services in India
  • August 14, 2025 - PPC Land publishes analysis of Meta-IPSOS financial product study, documenting 57% Instagram reliance for financial decisions - PPC Land coverage
  • January 15, 2026 - Meta shifts Facebook Reels recommendation model beyond engagement metrics to incorporate user survey signals - PPC Land coverage
  • March 13, 2026 - Meta announces end of Nielsen DMA targeting in automotive model ads, mandating migration to Comscore Markets by June 22, 2026 - PPC Land coverage
  • April 29, 2026 - Meta reports Q1 2026 revenue of $56.31 billion, a 33% year-over-year increase; Instagram Reels time spent up 10% from ranking improvements - PPC Land coverage
  • May 3, 2026 - Meta announces mandatory ad spend disclosure rules for advertisers starting February 2027 - PPC Land coverage
  • May 18, 2026 - Meta and Toluna publish creative effectiveness study of 100 Reels ads, finding emojis raise direct response purchase intent 2.5 times - PPC Land coverage
  • June 3, 2026 - Meta publishes IPSOS India video study covering 4,000+ respondents across 23 cities, documenting 97% daily video engagement and 81% Reels product discovery rate

Summary

Who: Meta, with research conducted by IPSOS across a sample of more than 4,000 respondents in India spanning metropolitan, Tier 2/3, and rural geographies. The findings are addressed to brands, marketers, and advertisers operating in the Indian market across categories including fast-moving consumer goods, financial services, automotive, and e-commerce.

What: A series of studies showing that 97% of surveyed Indian users watch video on Meta's platforms daily, that Reels achieves 89% daily engagement among Gen Z and 85% among women, and that the format influences 81% of product discovery, 66% of consideration, and 47% of purchase decisions among surveyed users. The study also reports that Reels delivers approximately 60% higher creator engagement than other surveyed short-form platforms, and that rural daily video engagement stands at 94% compared to 98% in urban India.

When: The study was published by Meta on June 3, 2026, drawing on IPSOS research conducted across multiple phases. A separate IPSOS financial services study was published in August 2025 and covered distinct research conducted during 2025 focusing on 25-45 year old users in four major Indian cities.

Where: India, covering 23 cities including metros, Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, and rural areas. The study reflects conditions specific to the Indian digital market, including the post-TikTok-ban competitive environment and the mobile-first internet infrastructure that characterises adoption outside major urban centres.

Why: The publication of this research follows a sustained pattern of Meta documenting its platform's role in the Indian market, particularly as the country's digital advertising ecosystem matures and advertisers seek evidence for platform investment across high-consideration verticals. For the marketing community, the significance lies in the geographic scope - the near-parity between urban and rural engagement rates indicates that India-wide campaigns no longer require separate rural media plans - and in the vertical-specific purchase influence data, which provides category-level justification for Reels as a performance channel rather than a purely brand-building one.