Fri. Mar 29th, 2024

Over-the-top (OTT) content platform Hotstar‘s owner Novi Digital Entertainment has received ₹516 crores from Star US. With the fresh infusion, Hotstar is now valued at ₹1849 crores, according to the financial documents sourced from data-driven news platform paper.vc.

These funds will help the platform to compete with other OTT platforms in the Indian market that are slowly gaining market share. Amazon Prime, Netflix, Voot, are among a few of the OTT platforms that have been attracting its customers with quality content focused towards the Indian youth.

According to an IBEF report, the Indian media and entertainment industry grew at a CAGR of 12.25% during 2011-2017. It is expected to continue growing at a CAGR of 11.6% to touch 2032 billion ($31.53 billion) by 2020 from 1308 billion ($19.46 billion) in 2016. This phenomenal growth makes it one of the fastest growing industry in the Indian market and provides a platform for the fast-growing advertising industry.

Last month, Hotstar had joined hands with Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart to launch a new ad platform, to help brands connect with potential customers. Flipkart has a large user base and it can leverage Hostar’s media platform to create value in advertising for its advertisers, along with providing relevant ads to the customers.

As per the documents, Hotstar has around seven lakh paid subscribers as of July. The fair value of the company was $265 million, according to Duff and Phelps. The valuation report for Novi shows that the company’s revenue for the year FY18 were ₹571 crores. In the quarter ending in June, it got saw revenues of ₹569 crores, owing to advertisement and subscription revenue from the Indian Premier League.

In FY17, the losses for the company increased by around 20% to ₹489 crores, while it showed a 79% increase in revenues to ₹320 crores.

By Varun

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