World Cup Cricket on Hotstar Hits Historic 59M Viewers in India, Outperforming JioCinema While Disney Navigates Market Shifts

The World Cup cricket match recently set a new viewership record in India, with Hotstar achieving an unprecedented 59 million concurrent viewers, surpassing the previous high of 53 million.

This significant viewership milestone placed Hotstar well ahead of its competitor, JioCinema, supported by Mukesh Ambani, and had earlier reached a peak of 32 million viewers, TechCrunch reports.

Also Read: Netflix's Local Content and Pricing Woes Undermine Growth in India

Despite this record-breaking viewership, Walt Disney Co DIS, which streams the ICC World Cup matches through Hotstar in India, is experiencing a decline in its digital subscriber base in the country, losing over 23 million subscribers in the last year.

Disney's CEO, Bob Iger, has expressed the company's intention to remain in the Indian market, which continues to be profitable for its television business, and is exploring various options for its future there.

Disney held preliminary talks with several companies, including Reliance and other private equity firms, regarding its business in India, a key asset in Fox Corp's FOX portfolio at the time of Disney's acquisition. However, the changing market conditions in India have prompted a strategic shift towards focusing on core businesses.

This shift in strategy also faces headwinds from Ambani's Viacom18, which has attracted several top executives from Star India and has committed $3 billion to stream the IPL cricket tournament for the next five years, the report added.

Disney is also investing a similar amount in IPL but for television broadcasting. Viacom18 has significant support from Bodhi Tree, led by former Fox executives.

Despite these challenges, Disney had high expectations for the ICC Cricket World Cup, with projections to marketers of reaching over 50 million concurrent viewers during the tournament and capturing 82% of India's total annual video users.

Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.