Analysts predict that Disney+ Hotstar’s subscriber decline will bottom out in the next quarter. After three successive quarters of declining subscriber numbers, experts believe that the South Asian streaming platform will see subscriber growth pick up in the next quarter.
Since losing digital streaming rights for the Indian Premier League in December last year, the OTT giant has reported consecutive quarters of de-growth in its subscriber base. It has lost over 33 per cent of its subscriber base since Reliance acquired the IPL streaming rights.
On Thursday, during their quarterly call, Disney reported that Disney+ Hotstar lost 12.5 million subscribers in the quarter ending on July 1.
The drop is the largest ever recording drop, since the company started reporting its paid subcriber count in 2020.
The decline in subscribers for Disney+ Hotstar began quite early, primarily driven by the loss of streaming rights to the IPL in India. Over six months ago, the paid member base for Disney+ Hotstar plummeted to 40.4 million during the quarter, marking a 24 per cent reduction from the previous quarter’s 52.9 million. The service had reached a peak of 61.3 million subscribers in the last quarter of 2022.
Since then, JioCinema, Viacom’s streaming platform, has not refrained from making more strategic acquisitions which have eroded Disney+ Hotstar’s differentiating factors even more. JioCinema acquired HBO’s content slate after Disney decided not to renew its deal with HBO. It also acquired another set of content properties from NBC Universal, broadening its content slate that caters to the top tier streaming subscribers.
The only differentiating factor for Disney, as far is streaming goes, remains it’s Marvel content slate — which is also losing steam and acclaim in its phase 4 line-up.
Experts counter that the de-growth is likely going to bottom out after this quarter. Karan Taurani of Elara Capital said, “we believe the subs loss has now largely bottomed out and may see a stable subscriber base/ marginal decline over the near term; in terms of revenue impact, the potential revenue loss will remain in the range of 50 to 60 per cent, as IPL was a large revenue contributor on AVOD; losses for Disney + Hotstar are expected to be much lower YoY.”
However, growth in premium subscribers is also expected to be limited for Disney+ Hotstar, according to Taurani. Especially as, increasingly, all the OTT players offer premium content for free, limiting the growth of the SVOD market. Disney+ Hotstar will offer the ICC World Cup free on its platform as well.