Article Index:
1. Introduction
2. When was Hotstar launched? And how many users does it have till now?
3. Why is Hotstar the most popular? What are its salient features?
4. How is Hotstar different from other OTT platforms?
5. Achievements of Hotstar
6. Conclusion
6.1 Why is Hotstar still the best OTT platform?
1. Introduction:
In the past 12-18 months, video streaming has become a more astronomical metro phenomenon as most of the people who stay in rural cities love to watch their favorite shows, web series, and movies through the medium of OTT platforms.
It has got revealed that around 55 percent of users in these OTT platforms are from the top five metro cities of our country.
Approximately 36 percent of the audience is through the Tier I cities of our country. This revelation came into light after the recent consumer study by Counterpoint Research.
2. When was Hotstar launched? And how many users does it have till now?
Coming to Hotstar, this lucrative OTT platform was formed in early 2015’s and is right now one of the most downloaded applications in our country. Hotstar has attracted more than 350 million followers, and this feat is possible only due to the highly evolved video technology it possesses and the high-quality experience it provides to its users across various devices and platforms.
Though OTT platforms get widely used in cities, a massive amount of 89 percent of users is from the 16-35 group. Salaried employees are the largest user group, followed by others, such as students, homemakers, business owners, and teenagers.
Interestingly, four-fifth of the audience who use these OTT platforms are male. This attribute is in sharp contrast with the traditional television viewing audience, which is dominated by women, right?
3. Why is Hotstar the most popular? What are its salient features?
Hotstar is leading these packs of OTT platforms. A noteworthy point to mention here is that Hotstar was one of the first video streaming platforms to start in India. Other platforms that are making noise today just followed the path created by Hotstar. Nearly 56 percent of users in Hotstar is from Metro cities. Hotstart also has the highest number of non-paying users.
This OTT platform, which is backed by Disney, crossed a vast amount of 300 million users in the year 2018. A point to mention here is that this staggering amount got passed even before the premiere of Game of Thrones earlier in the same year.
Hotstar also comprises some exquisite properties such as live sports action, which includes the IPL(Hotstar live cricket), because of which the platform holds the global record in live-streaming in terms of people watching.
Unlike other OTT platforms, Hotstar follows the ad-driven model rather than the fully subscription-based model. Even this feature is the prime reason behind such people barging on to Hotstar every time. True to its function Hotstar is driven mainly due to its ad-based model as most of its revenue gets generated due to advertisements and electronic fliers.
Other than these features, Hotstar features TV shows from around 20 different languages, which include Hindi and English and other regional languages. Additional local languages include Telugu(Bigg Boss Telugu), Marathi, Kannada, Punjabi, Tamil(Hotstar Vijay TV, Bigg Boss Tamil), Bengali and many others.
According to a recent consumer report, it gets speculated that around 25 percent of users in our country prefer to watch their content for free, another reason for the massive success of Hotstar.
4. How is Hotstar different from other OTT platforms?
Hotstar also gets a tremendous amount of backing from its international investors along with Disney because of which the platform has left no sector untouched and no category unexplored. This attribute means you can find any content you love to watch on this platform.
Hotstar houses everything from international content to regional content and even provides live streaming of some of its content. Because of the presence of these features, Hotstar is also enabling the youth to explore new content through it.
Today, Hotstar is the most popular OTT platform in the country. It has reached this pinnacle of success in the space of OTT platforms only due to its marketing approach and by providing more number of options to its consumers.
Hotstar has made sure that its platform has a broader reach compared to others across various content circles in our country.
Hotstar boasts of a market that gets said to be more than 280 million U.S dollars in size and comprises around 300 million users overall.
Hotstar also has about 75 million users streaming at a single moment. All these achievements of Hotstar are only due to its mixture of paid and free content, which has also made it reach more in-depth to the Indian consumer.
5. Achievements of Hotstar:
5.1 Since its launch in 2015, Hotstar has secured top spots on both Google Play Store and Apple App Store consistently.
5.2 It is also one of the most popular apps to get downloaded the most number of times in both these stores.
5.3 Hotstar had even got adjourned as the Apple TV’s App of the Year for India in 2016.
5.4 The same year, Hotstar made itself available on Chromecast as well and continued its domination on the Indian Marketplace.
6. Conclusion:
Streaming in India, though, is developed but has to still travel a long mile compared with the OTT platforms of other countries. But with prominent international companies such as Disney and other local companies backing such OTT platforms, it has truly created a platform through which Indian Consumers can get what they want.
Though there is a long way to go, video steaming is rapidly developing every single day in our country.
6.1 Why is Hotstar still the best OTT platform?
6.1.1 With the presence of robust technology as its backbone, Hotstar is efficiently leading the charge of these OTT platforms. A point to mention here is that Hotstar presents itself with exclusive and exquisite content.
6.1.2 This platform has truly set new benchmarks in terms of video quality and has ensured continuous video playback, even in network-constricted conditions or environments.
6.1.3 The player technology of Hotstar is sublimely efficient and never compromises on any aspect of audio or video quality. This player technology ensures that each user gets the best output with whatever bandwidth he watches it.
6.1.4 Another lucrative feature of Hotstar is that it allows its users to download the content and watch them offline later. By this virtue, Hotstar has addressed the critical consumer points such as high data costs and unavailability of broadband data or Wi-Fi.
6.1.5 By downloading the content offline, subscribers of Hotstar not only reduce their mobile bills, but they also enjoy the seamless streaming of their favorite content even in patchy network areas.
