In India, few events command as much attention as cricket. There is no match for the World Cup final.
Sunday’s game has already surpassed 55 million concurrent viewers, breaking the record of 53 million set earlier this week. With no high-profile cricket coming anytime soon, Hotstar is likely to maintain the record for at least six months.
As far as the metric of concurrent viewers is concerned, Hotstar now maintains a clear lead over its rival Viacom18’s Mukesh Ambani-backed JioCinema, which peaked at 32 million earlier this year.
The milestone also comes at a time when Disney, which broadcasts ICC World Cup cricket matches at no cost to mobile viewers in India, is rapidly losing digital subscribers in India and is assessing the future of the local business. Hotstar lost more than 23 million subscribers last year, according to Disney.
Disney CEO Bob Iger said earlier this month that the company “wants to stay” in India and is considering its options in the world’s most populous country where its TV business continues to be profitable.
The company has held preliminary talks with a handful of companies, including Ambani’s Indian conglomerate Reliance, as well as some private equity giants in recent months as it gained interest in the Indian business, the crown jewel of Fox’s portfolio at the time it was acquired by Disney.
But Star India’s fate has changed in recent years amid a dwindling market situation that forced Iger to shift focus to the core business. It also doesn’t help Hotstar that Ambani poached several top Star India executives to lead Viacom18 and agreed to spend $3 billion to broadcast the IPL cricket tournament for five years. (Disney also spends about $3 billion on the Indian Premier League, but on broadcasting the matches on TV.) Viacom18 counts Bodhi Tree, run by former Fox executives Uday Shankar and James Murdoch, among its important backers.
Disney had high hopes from the ongoing ICC Cricket World Cup. The global streaming company has projected for marketers that it could reach more than 50 million concurrent viewers for the tournament and reach 82% of India’s total annual video users over the roughly 50-day series, according to a 53-page internal slide reviewed by TechCrunch.