The globally popular over-the-top (OTT) streaming service, Disney+, known as Disney+ Hotstar in India and some other markets, now has 138 million users so far. Out of the 138 million users of Disney+, 50+ million users are of Disney+ Hotstar. Disney+ Hotstar saw good growth in new user addition on a monthly basis on the back of IPL (Indian Premier League) and bundling with prepaid plans. In the January to March 2022 quarter, Disney+ Hotstar added 4 million new users, which was quite a jump from the 2.6 million users in the previous quarter. Note that when we talk about users, we are talking about paid subscribers. Disney+ in total added 8 million new users in the first quarter of 2022, out of which 50% of the users came from Disney+ Hotstar.
IPL Helped Disney+ Hotstar With User Addition
The IPL, which kicked off on March 26, 2022, was one of the driving factors for Disney+ Hotstar in adding new subscribers, said Christine McCarthy, senior executive vice-president and chief financial officer said, during the earnings call. One more reason to drive the growth of Disney+ Hotstar could be the bundling with prepaid plans. Disney+ Hotstar bundled prepaid plans are offered by all the private telecom operators in the country. Multiple new plans were introduced by the telcos ahead of the IPL season, which came with Disney+ Hotstar. Jio even launched plans with a Premium subscription to the OTT platform. None of the other telcos provides such plans. In India, the telecom operators have also started the Mobile plan of Disney+ Hotstar for three months now. Earlier, all the plans came with a year-long validity which was slightly expensive. Disney+ Hotstar also offers multiple tiers of plans to users, which range up to Rs 1500 per year.
