30 Crore Fans Watched IPL 2019 On Hotstar; 1.8 Cr Hotstar Users Watched Finals At The Same Time!

With the fumes of 12^th edition of Vivo IPL, 2019 still very fresh in the air, the glittering affair has had a lot of discussions, both on and off field. Blazing shots and an absolute mayhem in stadiums as well as the affair of the entire nation can very well be described as the sequel following the 50 day long cricket league.

Not only on the sport side, the business front too has been orderly tumultuous with the uproar and transcend of how the series of matches proceeded. Homegrown, Indian streaming platform, Hotstar, owned by Disney, set an all new benchmark for online viewership, by registering an unprecedented count of 18.6 million concurrent viewers watching the live coverage of Sunday’s IPL finals between Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings on the platform.

Hotstar Dots a 300 million Users Feat!

Hotstar, on May 12, surpassed its own record of 10.7 million concurrent viewers logged onto Hotstar for live streaming, during IPL 2018‘s final match, showcasing an incredible spur of 7.9 million additional viewers this time. The Royal Challengers Bangalore vs Mumbai Indians match on March 28, itself recorded a concurrent viewership of 12.7 million, on the platform.

The 12^th edition of IPL, spanning from March 23 to May 12, garnered a viewership of 267 million, alone in the first three weeks on Hotstar. The streaming platform, which acquired IPL rights in 2017, by the end of IPL 2019 not only recorded more than 300 million active users but also witnessed a 74% increase in watch-time as compared to last year, as millions flocked to the website and app.

Hotstar’s Strong Technological Upper-hand:

Hotstar currently streams in Hindi, English and 6 other regional languages. The increasing popularity of IPL on Hotstar is the result of tech innovations the platform has rolled out. This year, it used a technology that utilized 10 times lesser compute, while handing 2.5 times more traffic rendering better quality at lower bit-rates than ever before. It outcasts a highly evolved video streaming technology and high attention to the quality of experience across devices and platforms.

For the 2019 campaign, Hotstar launched a campaign for the IPL coverage called #KoiYaarNahiFar, which enables fans to invite their friends and family members to watch matches together on the platform. Hotstar introduced social cricket-watching experience through which irrespective of their location, viewers have the opportunity to invite their friends and family to the platform, watch the matches, and participate in the Watch ’N Play game together. Viewers can compete and see where they stand against their friends and family through the new social leader board.

The campaign created an awareness of 84%, while the game attracted 64.4 million users, answering 1.2 billion questions and sending over 5.9 billion emojis and 43.5 million comments.

All Stacked Up for ICC Cricket World Cup?

The Star-India handled online streaming platform, Hotstar channels 100,000 hours of drama and movies in 9 languages and coverage of every major global sporting event, has a database of 300 million monthly active users, while its competitors Amazon Prime and Netflix showcase around 30 million subscribers in the country, expanding to the U.S., Canada and the U.K., to chase new audiences and Indians living overseas.

The streaming giant is now gearing up for the upcoming ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 that commences on 30^th May 2019. The spike in viewership on the platform is expected to go up during this period.

Hotstar is among one of India’s most downloaded apps and has secured top positions on PlayStore and AppStore.

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