Subscribers leave Disney+ Hotstar; paid user base falls 6% in Dec quarter

Parent firm to fire 7,000 staffers globally to save $5.5 bn in costs, make streaming biz profitable

Disney+ Hotstar reported its biggest decline in paid subscribers to date — a fall of 3.8 million subscribers, or 6 per cent of its total — in the October-December period.

The drop in numbers came after two warnings by the company that Hotstar’s paid subscriber base would shrink as it didn’t have streaming rights for the Indian Premier League (IPL) for the 2023-27 media cycle. The IPL would start on April 1 this year and continue till May 28.

Hotstar’s paid subscriber base stood at 57.5 million for October-December, down from 61.3 million in the July-September period. The India streaming