IPL On Hotstar Clocks 267 Million Viewers; Also Breaks Concurrent Viewership Record Of 11.2 Million

Hotstar, the leading Over The Top (OTT) streaming services provider registered 267 million viewers for the Indian Premium League (IPL) T20 cricket matches via live streams on its online platforms.

IPL into its twelfth edition is only three weeks into the season and is already nearing the 300 million target the company has set for the entire season, a 50 per cent jump from the previous year.

The streaming major has been breaking records since its launch in 2015 by its parent company Star India Ltd. The company broke its own record of 11.2 million concurrent viewers for a cricket match (India versus New Zealand T20 match) by recording 12.7 million viewers during the IPL Match number seven (Royal Challengers Bengaluru versus Mumbai Indians) played on 28 March.

Speaking to Livemint, Varun Narang, chief product officer Hotstar, said “The remarkable rate at which the viewership has grown over the years is a testament to the audience pull that IPL enjoys. On the back of this, Hotstar continues to break records by raising the bar in reinventing the sporting experience for millions of Indians.”

He also added that “These staggering numbers in just three weeks signify the platform’s immense reach and scale, as well as our technological ability to deliver an uninterrupted, immersive cricket watching experience for consumers.”

The company which streams its services on the web, Android, iOS, FireTV, and Apple TV platforms is expecting a 2x growth in viewership timing over the same period last year and estimates that this edition of the IPL matches will rake in Rs 400 crore in advertisements.

Star India won all cricket media rights of BCCI, including the Indian Premier League (IPL) for Rs16,347.50 crore (around $2.55 billion) in September 2017.