India’s performing arts market worth $3.8bn, to grow to $7b in 5 yrs: Study

The world needs more art & more artists. If numbers are anything to go by then India will soon turn into a performing arts powerhouse as indicated by a study by Kafqa Academy. The study found that India’s performing arts market is worth as much as $3.8bn and has an addressable market size of 26 million users in the 8-25 age range alone, a 7% penetration of the population with significant scope for growth. Comparatively, in the US, penetration of dance learning alone stands at 7.4%. The market is also expected to grow to $7 billion by 2027.




Kafqa Academy is an online performing arts academy started in April last year by former Amazon India director Shariq Plasticwala. The company offers online lessons on dance, music, public speaking and other performing arts by highly experienced and engaging teachers.

The one-of-its-kind study collected responses from 5000 respondents across the country. The study provides a comprehensive picture of the amount of money and time spent by parents and learners across different age groups and income slabs.

The study aims to shed light on the country’s vast and unorganised performing arts market and illustrate the depth of opportunity present.

One of the most striking findings of the study was that one in three Indian students between ages 6-14 were learning some kind of performing arts, regardless of their economic background. Low, affordable, private and elite schools have been defined as schools with an average annual fee of $1000, $533, $267 and $67 or more, respectively.

However, when it comes to learning performing arts such as dance, music and speech outside of school and paying for it, the numbers start to vary. Among the cohort of students learning performing arts, 22% of students from elite schools and 21% of students from private schools learn outside school and pay for it. The corresponding figures for affordable schools and low-income schools are 14% and 2%, respectively.

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“Social media platforms, especially short-form video platforms, have enabled artists to create content & inspire a large audience to pursue arts & content creation around it,” said Shariq Plasticwala, CEO of Kafqa Academy.

“Our mission is to make high-quality performing arts learning accessible to learners across ages leveraging technology.” he further added.

In February 2021, Kafqa Academy raised a pre-launch seed round of $1.3 million. The round was led by the lead investor Global Founders Capital (GFC).