Disney+ Hotstar (known as Hotstar outside India and Indonesia) is an Indian subscription video-on-demand streaming service owned and operated by Star India, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company India. It features two paid subscription plans — “VIP”, which focuses on domestic programs and sports content (including Indian Premier League cricket), and “Premium” featuring premium international films and television series (including HBO, Showtime, and other American original series). As of July 2020, VIP Plan costs ₹399 for a year and Premium Plan costs ₹1,499 per year or ₹299 for a monthly plan. As of March 2020, Disney+ Hotstar has at least 300 million active users.
In February 2020, following the purchase of Star India’s parent company 21st Century Fox by Disney in 2019, the company announced plans to integrate its new international streaming brand Disney+ with Hotstar in April 2020—leveraging Hotstar’s existing infrastructure and userbase. On 3 April 2020, the platform was merged with Disney+.
Star India officially launched Hotstar on 11 February 2015 after fifteen months of development, coinciding with the upcoming 2015 Indian Premier League (for which Star had recently acquired the streaming rights). The ad-supported service initially featured a library of over 35,000 hours of content in seven regional languages, as well as live streaming coverage of sports such as cricket (deferred live), football, and kabaddi. Star CEO Sanjay Gupta felt that there “[weren’t] many platforms available to Indian consumers offering high-quality, curated content besides, say, YouTube”, and explained that the service would appeal most prominently to the growing young adult demographic, and feature “very targeted” advertising. He estimated that by 2020, the service could account for nearly a quarter of Star’s annual revenue.
The 2016 launch of the LTE-only wireless carrier Jio spurred the growth of mobile broadband in India and was credited in turn for having bolstered the growth of streaming video in the country. While international services such as Prime Video and Netflix have seen some growth in the Indian market, Hotstar has remained the dominant streaming service. By July 2017, Hotstar’s apps had reached 300 million downloads, and it was reported as being the top video streaming app in the country. Source -(Wikipedia)