Jiohotstar closes in on Netflix, subscribers touch 300 million

Time of India

5 hours ago

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Jiohotstar's overall subscriber base has touched 300 million, just shy of the global OTT giant Netflix's last reported number of 301.63 million, the domestic streaming platform said on Wednesday.Recently concluded edition of the Tata IPL seemed to be aiding in the subscriber addition, which had stood at just 50 million in February as per a media report.The BCCI-promoted cricket league had many firsts in 2025, including digital viewership at 652 million crossing the 537 million on television, as per a report published by its parent Jiostar, which came into being in February this year with the merger of Reliance-led Jiocinema and Disney+Hotstar.Sanjog Gupta, the chief executive for sports and live experiences for Jiostar, suggested that the high viewership also translated into revenues."We have managed to make this IPL the most monetised edition of the event and also the most monetised sporting event ever in India across advertising and subscription revenue," he said.It can be noted that in 2022, Disney Star had won the TV rights of the tournament by offering Rs 23,575 crore for five years, while the India digital rights was bagged by Reliance-backed Viacom18 for Rs 20,500 crore.There was a 5.16 per cent jump among those who watched the cricket league in the digital format -- then known as Jiocinema -- from 620 million last year. However, the growth was restricted by a marginal 1.6 per cent dip in the TV watchers from the year-ago edition's 546 million who watched it on Star Sports.The final fixture between Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Punjab Kings on June 3 won by the Virat Kohli-led team from the southern city, had a reach of 237 million on digital, and 189 million on television, Jiostar said in a report.It can be noted that in February, Jiostar had just 50 million subscribers which raced to 280 million by May with start of the cricketing league, as per a media report.Netflix had 301.6 subscribers across 190 countries as of end-December 2024, with over 18 million added in October-December 2024.The overall reach of IPL across digital and TV mediums for Jiostar stood at 1.19 billion, and the average daily reach touched 121 million on TV and 170 million on digital platforms, the report said.The report said 129 million of the TV viewers were on the higher-cost Star Sports HD, and added that 47 per cent of the overall viewers on Star Sports were women.On the digital front, the reach on the streaming platform Jiohotstar stood at 652 million, while the same on connected TV was 235 million and 417 million watched it on mobile phones.The company's report said Jiostar had 1.04 billion downloads on Android, as per the report.The peak concurrency, which is the maximum number of users watching simultaneously, touched 55.2 million on the digital platforms, it said.The overall watch time on television had stood at 514 billion minutes, the report said.Among the languages, Telugu IPL viewers grew the fastest when compared to the last year's edition with an 87 per cent jump, and were followed by Kannada at 65 per cent, and Tamil at 52 per cent.The growth in the Hindi audience stood at 31 per cent, making it the slowest growing among the top-five language feeds.The company reported that it had 425 advertisers from 40 unique categories, it said, adding that the advertisers included 270 debutants.RCB had the highest video viewership at over 330 million, and Mumbai Indians edged past the league winners in overall TV watch time per team at 106 million billion minutes, as per the Jiostar report.