JioHotstar, the streaming platform owned by India’s largest media company JioStar, has reached 280 million paid subscribers within three and a half months of its launch in February 2025. This rapid growth puts it close to Netflix, the global subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) leader with over 300 million subscribers worldwide.
Kevin Vaz, CEO of Entertainment at JioStar, said, “Within a short period of three and a half months… we have got 280 million paid subscribers. Globally, we are very close to Netflix, which gets this [subscriber base] from across the world.”
In comparison, Amazon Prime Video has over 200 million Prime members globally. However, its subscriber count includes users who get the service bundled with Amazon’s broader Prime membership. In some countries, Prime Video is offered as a standalone platform. Earlier this year, Media Partners Asia Insights projected in a LinkedIn post that JioHotstar would reach 300 million subscribers before the Indian Premier League (IPL) final. While the final was initially scheduled for May, it has now been postponed to June 3. JioHotstar has not commented on when it expects to overtake Netflix’s subscriber base.
One of the key differences between Netflix and platforms like Prime Video and JioHotstar is their monetization model. JioHotstar operates on a hybrid model offering both paid subscriptions and advertisement-supported (AVOD) services. Prime Video is also set to introduce limited advertisements starting June 17, aligning with the growing trend of hybrid revenue models in OTT platforms.
At launch, JioHotstar combined the subscriber base of JioCinema and Disney+ Hotstar, totaling around 50 million. This figure surged to over 200 million by April, largely driven by the ongoing IPL season. Other major sporting events such as the International Cricket Council (ICC) Champions Trophy and the Women’s Premier League also contributed to the platform’s expansion.
JioHotstar’s broad portfolio of international content has played a significant role in attracting users. The platform hosts titles from major U.S. studios like Warner Bros., Discovery, HBO, NBCUniversal’s Peacock, Disney, and Paramount, in addition to its sports programming.
A media buying executive explained the platform’s competitive advantage in sports streaming, saying, “JioHotstar has a large broadcasting network and this network has a huge base in the majority of the sports event rights in India. This becomes a huge advantage for it [JioHotstar, particularly in cricket streaming], and compared to this, it is hard for others [other major OTT platforms like Netflix and Prime Video] to achieve that scale in India.”
During the earnings call, Vaz also highlighted the vast size of JioHotstar’s content library.
He noted that the platform offers 320,000 hours of content, which he said is six times larger than what Netflix or Amazon Prime Video currently provide.
Additionally, the India–New Zealand ICC Champions Trophy final set a new world record with 61 million concurrent viewers.
Kevin Vaz, CEO of Entertainment at JioStar, said, “If I have to put it into perspective, as many of us might know of the Super Bowl in the US. Let me tell you, their peak concurrency could be one-fourth of it [compared to the India–New Zealand final match].”
JioHotstar also boasts 250 original titles, the highest among its competitors in India. The platform sees 503 million monthly users, placing it well ahead in terms of reach within the Indian OTT landscape.