Disney+ the streaming service from Disney is finally arriving in India. Recently, Disney has announced that the subscription-based streaming service Disney Plus will arrive in India on 29 March through Hotstar app. Last year, Disney+ app was launched in the US in November, and now the app is coming to India.
Disney+ India launch date is March 29, Hotstar to be rebranded as Disney+ Hotstar
The CEO Robert Iger has made this announcement on Tuesday at the company’s quarterly earnings. He said,
“We’re excited to announce that we will be launching Disney Plus in India through our Hotstar service on March 29 at the beginning of the Indian Premier League cricket season,” Iger said
The CEO said that the company will rebrand the Hotstar app to “Disney Plus Hotstar”. He also added,
“We see this as a great opportunity to use the proven platform of Hotstar to launch the new Disney Plus service in one of the most populous countries and fastest-growing economies in the world”.
Disney obtained Hotstar streaming service in 2017 as a part of the acquisition of Fox Studios. At present, so many premium Disney content is available on Hotstar app. However, as Disney Plus will come with Hotstar, it will allow all the Indian subscribers to watch some new content from Studio’s streaming service. You might watch “Star Wars” spin-off series, “The Mandalorian” these are available only on Disney Plus as of now.
As per the reports, the prices of the rebranded service is not finalised, but it will offer two plans. The plans will be like one will be basic with library programs and not the original one, and the other one will be premium in nature which includes the full library with the original program.
The Disney CEO also said that the company hopes to get profit from the Indian Premier League as the Star India is the official broadcaster of IPL.
As Disney Plus and Hotstar are brought together, the company takes on the competition from the other streaming services in the market, like Netflix and Amazon Prime. These two platforms already have so many varieties of Indian content. This app will also have competition with other apps like ALTBalaji, Zee5, Eros Now, Sony Liv and Voot.
While announcing about Disney Plus, the Iger also announced that Disney+ already has 28.6 million paid subscribers after it was launched in the US on 12 November 2019.
Apart from launching in India, Disney+ is also set to be launched in Ireland, France, UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, Austria and Switzerland on 24th March.