Walt Disney Company that recently bought Star India is taking its over-the-top platform Hotstar to global markets, according to a report by Business Standard.
Hotstar has been launched in three key markets — the US, Canada, and the UK. The company aims to reach the majority of the 40 million South Asians living abroad.
According to the report, Hotstar is looking at gaining subscribers from five West Asian markets including Singapore as nearly 75% of this population are ethnic South Asian.
In a bid to push Hotstar, Disney has also discontinued its linear television offers in most of these countries for Star TV channels available through cable.
In the three markets, Hotsar will play shows, movies and sports in Hindi and regional languages, wherever possible.
In the US, around 200,000 subscribers watch Star TV channels but the subscription fee cable operators charge is more than $25 a month. Hotstar, on the other hand, is being offered at an attractive price of $10 a month. This would help the OTT platform gather more subscribers.
Even though Disney has been pushing to take Hotstar global, it has decided not to launch Disney+ or Hulu in India. The company plans to make Hotstar the one-stop OTT channel from the group back home.
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