Disney+ Hotstar Revenues: Call it IPL 2020 impact or Covid-19 pandemic led push – Disney+ Hotstar revenues have shot up in FY20. While the COVID-19 pandemic has been devastating for cinema halls and public events, streaming platforms have seen a surge in the number of users. Keeping up with the trend, Disney+Hotstar’s parent company, Novi Digital Entertainment has had a surge in revenue for the 2020 financial year. In addition, the company’s net losses also narrowed during this time.
According to business intelligence platform Tofler, Novi Digital’s revenue shot up from Rs 1123 crore in the previous year to Rs 1628 crore in FY2020. Furthermore, the loss narrowed from Rs 554.38 crore to Rs 361.8 crore even though the company’s expenses grew to Rs 1990 crore from Rs 1677 crore in 2019.
The company also saw a growth in ad revenue despite operations grew to Rs 1593 crore from Rs 1112.7 crore in the previous year. The ads contributed a total of Rs 974.23 crore, a sharp increase from Rs 622.75 crore in FY19. Novi Digital’s subscribers’ base also increased during the period as more people stayed home due to the restrictions thanks to COVID-19 pandemic.
The increase in subscriber base also reflected in revenue that shot up to Rs 618.79 crore from Rs 466.64 crore in FY19. The company’s expenses were mostly in licensing fees that jumped from Rs 493.84 crore to Rs 722.53 crore in 2020. As a result, total operating cost increased from Rs 969.63 crore to Rs 1383.30 crore in 2020. But Novi Digital cut down on costs in advertising promotional expenses by almost half. From Rs 402.5 crore in 2019FY, it went down to Rs 286 crore in 2020, as per a report by Exchange4Media.
With Disney+ launching in India in collaboration with Hotstar, the subscriber increased. With over 400 million downloads from Google’s Play Store and Apple’s App Store, Disney+Hostar continues to be one of the most popular apps in India. Of that, however, only 26 million are paid subscribers as of December 2, 2020. But during the Indian Premier League season, the platform added roughly 7.5 million paid subscribers. In September 2020, the subscriber base was about 18.5 million.
“With a rapidly growing middle class, India is a promising market opportunity and we are uniquely positioned to succeed in the country due to our existing presence with Star TV and Hotstar,” Rebecca Campbell, Disney International Operations and Direct-to-Consumer segment chairwoman said during the company’s annual Investor Day event.
The platform offers Tv serials from STAR TV network besides Hindi movies. As for Hollywood content, it has tie-ups with multiple American showrunners to bring the latest to India. In Sports, Disney+Hotstar has IPL, ISL, European Football besides Formula 1 and Wimbledon and French Open for its premium subscribers.
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