Disney is recently planning for bringing its on-demand services of video streaming into India and also into some southeastern Asian markets as soon because of the second half of the next coming year; this is known from two reliable sources, who are aware of the plans of the company, as informed by TechCrunch.
The company is planning to bring Disney+’s catalog to Hotstar (a well known and a popular service that offers video streaming facilities)in India. This is all going to happen in May, after the completion of the IPL tournament next year, as stated by the people.
Soon after that, the corporate has already planned to expand the network of Hotstar with Disney+’s catalog in regions like, Indonesia and Malaysia,amongst the other southeastern Asian nations; this is stated mainly by the people who are on the situation of anonymity.
A popular spokesperson of the Hotstar did not comment on anything and even declined to place any remark over here.
Hotstar is one of the leading video streaming networks in India. Last year during the IPL cricket tournament and the ICC world cup, Hotstar had more than 300 million subscribers that too every month. As per the data, more than 25million people consecutively streamed one of these many matches, by setting it into a brand new global record.
Hotstar has expanded its network widely-both on national, as well as on an international basis. It has entered into the regions of the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom in recent years.
Last year during an interview with TechCrunch, the president of Hotstar’s global operations, Ipsita Dasgupta, stated that the worldwide technique of this platform to enter into the markets is through the excessive density of the Indian population.
Disney+ is recently available in the regions of United States, Canada, and the Netherlands;and it can be assumed that the services provided by Disney+ will also expand to the areas of Australia and New Zealand by the next week,and in the regions of United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France Spain, the services would be introduced by 31st of March, as it was announced by the company last week.
Price Hike.
Disney has debuted its services of video streaming in the United States this week. It has already accumulated over 10 million subscribers, various plans to raise the monthly subscription package of Hotstar in India. The current price of this package is $14 per year, as stated by one of the two people.
The hike in the price is going to happen towards the end of the primary quarter of next year, just following the commencement of the IPL cricket match of the next year, as stated by the people. The charges are not yet decided by the company, but sources say that it might charge more than $30 per year.
In the other Southeastern Asian Markets, the service may cost above $30 per year, as mentioned by the sources. The costs have not yet been finalized, as stated by these sources.
Even at the assumed value points, Disney would surely have the capability to undercut the rivals on price.
Hotstar provides a huge library of local films, and titles consortium from global cable networks, and studios showtime, HBO, ABC (owned by Disney). In its recent global markets, Hotstar’s catalog is controlled to a few native contents and a huge library of Indian titles.
In present quarters, Hotstar has opened it’s an office in Tsinghua science park in Beijing, China and has employed almost 60 engineers who would help to expand the service infrastructure to the additional future customers, according to recruitment in various posts and the other information obtained from LinkedIn.
