NEW DELHI: Despite 'striking' lack of infrastructure, India is one of the four BRIC countries that Credit Suisse believes has significant revenue and profit opportunity for global media companies over the near to intermediate term. The other three countries are Brazil, China and Russia.

The report, "Indian Media: Opportunities for Hollywood in Bollywood", says News Corp, Disney and Sony are best positioned among the biggest global media companies to capitalise on opportunities in India. This is due in part to their existing operations and in the case of Disney also due to recent acquisitions. This list could expand significantly, and Viacom, Time Warner and Discovery are already on the ground.

The report says each of the four "emerging growth" markets may hold significant long term opportunity for global media but we believe that the opportunities to distribute content and leverage a traditional advertising and subscription revenue model are now in place in India.

It is poised to continue rapid growth for several years as the multi channel TV business is evolving toward a digital platform that will expand the market as well as the ability for content providers to actually get paid."We expect most if not all of the major media companies to establish 'play on India' at some point, says the report filed by Credit Suisse Global Media analysts William Drewary, Jolanta Masojada and Ashish Gupta.

Cable networks, syndicated TV shows and film production as well as Internet and mobile content will be the main products sold into India - many of these businesses are already established, the reports adds.

"There is a large local media infrastructure in the country as well, with many publicly traded companies - though market cap size is a fraction of the US based companies. We would expect consolidation opportunities in country for the global media companies and Disney has been active in this regard lately" says the trio.

But there is a slight disturbing note. "The lack of physical infrastructure in India is striking - a fact noted by any we met as an impediment of sorts to building businesses in the country.

"Rather than a conclusion, this is an issue that will evolve over time, and the entrepreneurial spirit and democratic/capitalist society should eventually override the physical infrastructure limitations. We believe there are major opportunities emerging in India and hope this report will help to highlight that."