Disney’s streaming platform Disney Plus has delayed its India launch via Hotstar owing to the postponement of the Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket season amid the spread of Coronavirus.
Earlier this month, Hotstar had rolled out an update, which not only changed the app’s name to Disney+ Hotstar, but also added Disney+ shows to the platform. However, it was rolled back a day later.
“We recently announced that Disney+ would launch in India through the Hotstar service in conjunction with beginning of the Indian Premier League cricket season,” Uday Shankar, President, The Walt Disney Company APAC and Chairman, Star & Disney India, said in a statement on Friday.
“Given the delay of the season, we have made the decision to briefly pause the roll-out of Disney+ and will announce a new revised premiere date for the service soon,” he added.
Robert Iger, then chairman and CEO of Disney, had given March 29 as the official launch date of Disney+ in India.
As per earlier reports, the Disney+ Hotstar is currently available at no additional charge to existing Hotstar subscribers — who pay Rs 999 for a year and the premium tier carries a new yearly sticker price of Rs 3,588.
Shows like The Mandalorian, Marvel’s Hero Project and The Imagineering Story: Limited Series are currently available on the platform. The list also includes Diary of a Future President, Disney Family Sundays, Encore, Forky Asks a Question, and High School Musical: The Musical.
In terms of downloads, Disney+’s second month garnered 13.5 million, or 33%, of the 40.9 million installs it’s seen since launch. Meanwhile, Hotstar, at its peak, reported more than 100 million daily active users and 300 million monthly active users last year.
According to media reports, in an effort to prevent the further spread of the novel coronavirus, both Netflix and Disney have halted production on certain projects.
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