Disney+ to launch in India through Hotstar on March 29
Disney plans to bring its on-demand streaming service Plus in India through Hotstar on March 29, a little earlier than expected, the company said Tuesday.
In an earnings call with analysts, Disney chief executive Bob Iger said the company will launch the service in the world’s second largest internet market at the beginning of the next edition of IPL cricket tournament. He also revealed that Disney+ had amassed 26.5 million paying subscribers.
TechCrunch reported in November that the company was planning to launch its streaming service in India by second half of the year, followed by entry in Southeast Asian markets. We also reported that the company was likely to hike the price of Hotstar service, which at its peak had about 300 million users in India.
Iger declined to share specifics about how much the company would charge for Disney+ featuring Hotstar, but said it will bring “two primary products” into India.
“One will be more premium in nature that will include the entire library of original programming and the other one will be more basic that will have the library and not the original programming priced for the market and launched at a very peak period of time for the IPL, the Cricket League,” he said.
“So we think it’s an opportune moment, we take advantage of the presence of Star in the market and the millions of subscribers that they also have, we take advantage of the sports tie-in and we use the interface and the technology that includes the billing that already exists to launch a service we believe under very, very optimal circumstances,” he added.
More to follow…
Disney plans to bring its on-demand streaming service Plus in India through Hotstar on March 29, a little earlier than expected, the company said Tuesday. In an earnings call with analysts, Disney chief executive Bob Iger said the company will launch the service in the world’s second largest internet market…
