JioHotstar hits 300 million subscribers led by IPL – financialexpress.com

Streaming platform JioHotstar, owned by media major JioStar, has touched 300 million subscribers within four months of launch, marking a significant milestone in the video-on-demand (VOD) space. JioHotstar is now within striking distance of rival Netflix’s last reported number of 301.63 million subscribers, sources in the know said.
More importantly, the subscriber growth has come on the back of the 2025 edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL), which saw a billion viewers tune into the tournament across TV and digital, JioStar said on Wednesday at APOS, which is an annual media and entertainment summit, currently happening in Bali, Indonesia.
The merged digital platform, which began on February 14 with 50 million subscribers, had touched 200 million subscribers within days of the start of the IPL in March. 100 million subscribers were added during the course of the T20 tournament, experts said.
The BCCI-promoted cricket league had many firsts in 2025, including digital viewership at 652 million crossing the 537 million on television, according to a report by JioStar and Media Partners Asia released Wednesday. JioStar was formed in November 2024 following the merger of Reliance-backed Viacom18 and Star India. JioHotstar was formed following the merger of JioCinema and Hotstar, digital platforms of Viacom18 and Star India respectively.
“Apart from viewership, we have also managed to make this IPL the most monetised edition of the event and also the most monetised sporting event ever in India across advertising and subscription revenue,” Sanjog Gupta, CEO, sports and live experiences, JioStar, said. According to sources, JioStar closed the IPL 2025 season with advertising revenue of nearly Rs 5,000 crore, surpassing last year’s performance of around Rs 4,500 crore.

According to JioStar, over 425 brands, including 270 first-time advertisers across 40 categories partnered with it during the IPL this year. This is despite a week-long pause in May due to tensions between India and Pakistan following the Pahalgam terror attack on April 22.
The overall reach of IPL 2025 across digital and TV for JioStar stood at 1.19 billion, and the average daily reach touched 121 million on TV and 170 million on digital platforms.
The report also said that 129 million of the TV viewers were on the higher-cost Star Sports HD, and added that 47% of the overall viewers on Star Sports (TV channel) were women.
On the digital front, the reach on the streaming platform JioHotstar stood at 652 million, while the same on connected TV was 235 million and 417 million watched it on mobile phones.
JioHotstar also had 1.04 billion downloads on Android, and the peak concurrency, which is the maximum number of users watching simultaneously, touched 55.2 million on digital. The overall watch time on television meanwhile stood at 514 billion minutes, the report said.
Indian-American Zohran Mamdani, a progressive New York Rep, is gaining momentum in the mayoral race and has been labeled as Trump’s “worst nightmare”. Vivek Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur and fellow Indian-American, has challenged Mamdani’s traction and proposed Ohio as an alternative for those concerned about a Democratic socialist win. The internet is divided between the two.

source