Hotstar crosses 400 Mn downloads powered by regional content and non-metro cities

Disney-owned video-streaming platform Hotstar has crossed 400 million downloads powered by stellar growth in consumption of regional content and a surge in interest from non-metro cities.

The OTT app registered 2X growth in installs and 3X growth in consumption this year as compared to last year, according to the third edition of its India Watch Report 2019.

Regional language content contributed to 40% of all videos streamed on Hotstar in 2019. Tamil, Telugu and Bengali emerged as the top regional languages, the report said.

India's non-metro cities contributed 63% to the total entertainment video consumption on Hotstar. This was a 9% jump compared to 2018.

The report said Hotstar's 95% consumption came from mobile phones, with an average user consuming 9.8 GB data per month. Bihar and West Bengal's data consumption per user were higher compared to Maharashtra and Karnataka.

Patna, Pune and Lucknow were ahead of metros like Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Kolkata in video consumption and non-metro users spent more time than metro users on the app.

Among the most viewed offerings on Hotstar were the season finale of Game of Thrones, the ICC Cricket World Cup and matches of the Indian Premier League.

Sports, primarily IPL, remains Hotstar's main play with 1.5 times more reach this year. Entertainment saw a 2.5X increase in consumption whereas the consumption of news has grown 10X in 2019.

"We now see newer horizons of customer reach, with non-metro towns driving online consumption. Digital viewership among women has also grown by leaps and bounds," said Uday Shankar, President, The Walt Disney Company Asia Pacific, and Chairman of Star and Disney India.  

"The new Indian consumer is breaking old stereotypes and defying conventional wisdom," Shankar added.

Currently, Hotstar leads the Indian online streaming market with MAU of 300 Mn according to the last figure reported by Redseer Consulting report.

It competes with global firms Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and local players like Zee5, AltBalaji and SonyLiv in this space. For the year ended March 2019, Hotstar had seen 95% surge in its operational income. Though, both losses and expenses had also shot up during the period.