Disney is set to bring its streaming service Disney+ to India through Hotstar on 29 March, announced CEO Bob Iger on Tuesday. While the company has declined to comment on how much it would charge for Disney+, Iger has said it would introduce “two primary products” in India. The premium service will include the entire library of original programming, while the other will include a more basic collection and no original content.
“One will be more premium in nature that will include the entire library of original programming and the other one will be more basic that will have the library and not the original programming priced for the market and launched at a very peak period of time for the IPL, the Cricket League,” he said in a statement. “We will be rebranding our existing Hotstar VIP and Premium subscription tiers to Disney Plus Hotstar,” he added.
Disney+ will reportedly offer access to about 500 films and 7,500 television episodes from the Disney library, as well as original content that is exclusive to the platform. These include the Star Wars movies and Jon Favreau’s The Mandalorian, plus content from the Marvel franchise.
Hotstar currently offers limited content for free alongside premium services priced at Rs 999 a year and Rs 299 a month. There’s also a VIP service, priced at Rs 365 annually, which has live sports, such as cricket, Premier League and Formula 1, and access to episodes of Indian TV shows, Indian movies and Hotstar specials, but English content. According to reports, these prices are likely to increase once Disney+ is added to the catalog.
As per the figures released by The Walt Disney Company, Disney+ has amassed 26.5 million subscribers since its launch on 12 November last year. It is currently available in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands, and will be launch in the UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Switzerland and Austria from 24 March.
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