Cricket turned Hotstar into one of the world's biggest streaming services
Hotstar launched in February 2015 timed to the Cricket World Cup, and the sport never stopped driving it. During India's 2019 World Cup semi-final against New Zealand, 25.3 million people watched at once. By 2025 its successor, JioHotstar, had more subscribers than any streaming service except Netflix.
Star India spent fifteen months building the app. At launch it was free with ads, offering more than 35,000 hours of shows and films in seven regional languages plus live football and kabaddi, with cricket shown on a delay. The company's chief executive, Sanjay Gupta, aimed it at young adults and argued that few Indian platforms beyond YouTube offered curated, high-quality video. The 2015 World Cup drew at least 345 million views, and the IPL that spring more than 200 million.
Cheap mobile data did the rest. The 2016 arrival of Jio, a carrier running only on 4G, is credited with igniting streaming in India, and although Netflix and Amazon Prime Video grew, Hotstar stayed on top. By July 2017 its apps had been downloaded 300 million times, and by 2019 it counted over 150 million monthly users. That year it introduced a low-cost VIP plan that could even be paid in cash, bundling the IPL, the World Cup and Premier League football. The IPL final set a concurrent-viewing peak of 18.6 million before the World Cup semi-final beat it.
Disney acquired the service in 2019 as part of its purchase of 21st Century Fox, Star India's parent. Bob Iger folded Disney+ into it, and after the pandemic postponed the IPL the combined Disney+ Hotstar went live on 3 April 2020 with a virtual premiere of The Lion King and The Mandalorian. The brand later spread to Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, where it became plain Disney+ in October 2025, while a US version shut in 2021.
In India, the service merged with its rival JioCinema in February 2025 to become JioHotstar, owned by the JioStar joint venture. Versions aimed at the Indian diaspora run in Canada, Singapore and the United Kingdom.
Source: Disney+ Hotstar
