JioHotstar crosses 100 mn paid subscribers after Disney-Reliance merger | Mint

JioHotstar, the video streaming platform created with the merger of Disney+ Hotstar and JioCinema, has crossed 100 million paid subscribers, the company said on Thursday.

In February last year, Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) and The Walt Disney Co. formed a joint venture that they said would combine the businesses of Reliance’s associate company, Viacom18 Media Pvt. Ltd, and Disney’s Star India.

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Following the sale of Disney’s India assets to RIL, the merger into one streaming platform, JioHotstar, was finally announced last month.

Nita M. Ambani heads the Reliance-Disney joint venture as its chairperson, while broadcast industry veteran Uday Shankar is vice-chairperson.

“We have always believed that world-class entertainment should be accessible to all, and crossing 100 million subscribers is a testament to that vision. This milestone not only underscores India’s limitless potential but also strengthens our commitment to pioneering category-first experiences at an unprecedented scale. As we continue to innovate and expand, our focus remains on shaping the future of streaming, driving accessibility, and unlocking infinite possibilities for a billion screens,” Kiran Mani, chief executive officer (CEO) – digital, JioStar said in a statement.

The combined Reliance-Disney streaming entity is three to four times bigger than the likes of Netflix in terms of total hours of programming and may even look at acquiring smaller, niche language-specific entities that are struggling to survive, according to industry experts.

Their total paid subscriber base is far higher than Netflix’s estimated 15 million and Prime Video’s 18 million users.

Unlike its competition, Disney+ Hotstar had stepped back from commissioning original programming over the past year in the runup to its impending merger with JioCinema. The latter, meanwhile, brought out some small-budget, fiction-based content.

For the most part, however, it has relied on sports programming, particularly the Indian Premier League (IPL) T20 cricket tournament, and to a lesser extent the reality show Bigg Boss, to build its subscriber-base.

While the company has been exuding confidence, industry insiders point out aside from sports programming and Bigg Boss, the erstwhile JioCinema had only been adding to its cluttered library by releasing shows and movies on a regular basis without any marketing or promotions or allowing for user-discovery.

JioHotstar’s wider strategy, particularly for SVoD (subscription video-on-demand) viewers, may warrant some critical thought, say industry watchers, given the challenges awaiting it in India’s crowded OTT market.