Disney+ is all set to foray in India market through on the back of a merger with home-grown streaming platform — Hotstar, Bob Iger, chairman and CEO, The Walt Disney Company, said on Tuesday during the earnings call of Q1, 2020 result. Disney+ was rolled in last November and has been active in the US, Canada, Netherlands and Australia, New Zealand and Puerto Rico. The company claims that in this short space the video streaming platform has amassed 26.5 million paying subscribers. It should be noted that the Walt Disney Company which already owns ESPN+, recently concluded the buy out of Hulu, and also has owning rights to Hotstar post the acquisition of 21st Century Fox.

At present, Hotstar claims to have the largest market share in the India over-the-top (OTT) space thanks to its cricket broadcast rights. The platform also has streaming rights for HBO’s original content. Although earlier in the past it had tried its hands at beefing up original content under ‘Hotstar Original’, needless to say, other platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime Videos are still ahead of the game. Netflix earlier had said it will invest Rs 3,000 crore to build original content pipeline. Interestingly, Disney hasn’t renewed its streaming deal with Netflix which will end in early 2020. There is also doubt about the future of Marvel movies which are currently being streamed on Netflix. With this move, Disney+ will have access to original content from its sister companies including Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm and National Geographic. Hotstar VIP and Premium will be rebranded as Disney+Hotstar.

According to the company’s Q1 earnings report, The Walt Disney Company posted a 36.3% increase in revenue to $20,858 millions as opposed to $15,303 million in December 2019. Parks, Experiences and Products, which contributes most to the company’s revenue, recorded a rise of 8.3% to Rs $7.4 billion, while media network rose 24.3% to $7.4 billion in 2019 as opposed to $5.9 billion during the same period, last year.

On the other hand, revenue from studio entertainment grew 106.3% to $3.8 billion in December 2019. This is primarily because of an increase in theatrical and TV/SVOD distribution results due to the performance of Frozen II and Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker in the current quarter. Meanwhile, Direct-to-Consumer and International recorded over a threefold rise to $4 billion in 2019 as opposed to $918 million during the same period, the previous year. However, the segment operating loss increased from $136 million to $693 million. The increase in operating loss was due to costs associated with the launch of Disney+, the consolidation of Hulu and a higher loss at ESPN+.

Within its streaming platforms, the average monthly revenue per paid subscriber for ESPN+ decreased from $4.67 to $4.44 due to a shift in the mix of subscribers to the bundled offering. In November 2019, the company began to offer a bundled subscription package of Disney+, ESPN+, and Hulu. The bundle was sold at a lower average retail price per service compared to the average retail price of each service on a standalone basis. As for Hulu SVOD Only service, the revenue per paid subscriber decreased from $14.49 to $13.15 driven by lower retail pricing and a shift in the mix of subscribers to our bundled offering. The average monthly revenue per paid subscriber for our Hulu Live TV + SVOD service increased from $52.31 to $59.47 due to higher retail pricing.

Disney+ will be launched on March 24 Western Europe—including the UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Austria and Switzerland. Additional Western Europe markets, including Belgium, the Nordics and Portugal, will follow in summer 2020.

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