Despite Big Losses Due to Cricket Departures, Disney+ is Still India’s Top Streaming Service
Any good news is welcome for Disney streaming services these days. Disney’s streamers are currently drastically unprofitable, turning in losses of hundreds of millions of dollars every quarter. The company is doing just about everything it thinks will help curb those losses, including big content cuts to its streaming platforms Disney+ and Hulu.
One area where Disney felt the need to cut costs globally was its streams of Indian Premier League cricket. The company dropped streaming rights to the IPL this year, in favor of acquiring the league’s linear broadcasting rights in India. That decision led to two straight quarters of subscriber losses for Disney+ so far this year, as millions of Indian users left the service (called Disney+ Hotstar in many international territories, including India).
But new data from Ampere Analysis as reported by Deadline shows that Disney+ Hotstar still dominates the Indian streaming market, despite the losses. Ampere’s numbers show that Disney+ Hotstar has a 29% share of India’s 171 million streaming customers, which equals around 50 million individuals. By comparison, Prime Video has 12.4 million users in the country, and Netflix has just 6.2 million.
Disney’s dominance in India will not suddenly end because of its willingness to let go of its IPL streaming rights, either. Ampere predicts the service’s cost-cutting measures and attempts to boost its average revenue per user (ARPU) will keep it at the top of the Indian streaming market, which is the third-largest in the world behind the United States and China. Disney+ Hotstar, which combines most of the titles from Disney+ and Hulu onto a single platform, owns 123 of the top 500 streaming titles in India currently.
The company may have to watch out for Jio Cinema, the streaming platform whose parent company Viacom18 won the bidding for IPL rights. Starting next year, Jio Cinema will offer more tiered subscription options to boost the amount it makes per customer and start competing with the bigger players in the streaming industry.
Global subscriber losses are never good news, but at least Disney can spin these latest figures from Ampere to show that it will continue to be the dominant presence in Indian streaming for years to come. Disney+ Hotstar no longer carries IPL cricket, but it’s well-positioned to continue reigning over the streaming landscape in that country.
Disney+
Disney+ is a video streaming service with over 13,000 series and films from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic, The Muppets, and more. It is available in 61 countries and 21 languages. It is notable for its popular original series like “The Mandalorian,” “Ms. Marvel,” “Loki,” “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” and “Andor.”