Walt Disney owned Disney+ said that in the last couple of quarters, Hotstar was the strongest contributor to its subscriber addition.
Disney+ has crossed the 100 million subscribers and now has a total of103.6 million paid subscribers. Disney+Hotstar currently has about 34.5 million subscribers.
“Between Q1-Q2, Disney+Hotstar was the strongest contributor to the net subscriber addition and made approximately a third of total Disney+ subscriber base as of the end of Q2″, said Christine McCarthy, Chief Financial Officer, Disney.
However, she added that the Average Revenue Per User or ARPU at Disney+Hotstar was down significantly compared to Q1 due to lower ad revenue as a result of the timing of the IPL cricket matches and the impact of COVID-19 in India.
McCarthy further added that the majority of the prior IPL tournament took place in fiscal Q1 and there were no games in Q2.
The current IPL tournament began on April 9, in fiscal Q3 and was suspended last week, given the rising cases and deaths as a result of COVID-19.
“Majority of the prior IPL tournaments took place in fiscal Q1 and there were no games in Q2. The current IPL tournament began on April 9, in fiscal Q3 and was suspended last week, given the Covid-19 situation in India,” said McCarthy.
Hotstar competes with several other streaming services like Netflix, AmazonPrime, Zee5, SonyLIV, Viacom 18’s Voot, and others in India.
Revenues from Disney’s direct-to-consumer (D2C) segment increased 59% to $4 billion for the quarter from $2.5 billion last year, while net losses reduced to $290 million for the quarter from $805 million a year ago.
The company now has more than 159 million subscribers across its streaming services Disney+, ESPN+ and Hulu at the end of the quarter, according to reports.
“We are on track to achieve our guidance of 230 million to 260 million subscribers by the end of fiscal 2024” said Bob Chapek, Disney CEO said during the call.
The report further added that Disney posted total revenues of $15.6 billion for the quarter, a 13 per cent decline from $18 billion in the same quarter last year. Net profit increased 95 per cent year-on-year to $912 million for the quarter, from $468 million from a year-ago period.
