ICC Cricket World Cup 2019: Hotstar garners record reach of 100M during India-Pakistan game
The much-hyped India-Pakistan match saw Hotstar set a new live-streaming record for ODIs. But, IPL 2019 final continues to lead peak concurrency numbers.
Another cricketing event, another streaming record for Hotstar!
The Disney-owned service revealed that its livestream of the India-Pakistan match held on June 16 garnered a single-day reach of 100 million. Of this, two-thirds (66 percent) of the users came in from towns "beyond the big metro cities".
One of the most frenzied encounters of the ICC Cricket World Cup, the game reached a peak concurrency of 15.6 million - a new record for ODI matches.
However, it dropped short of the all-time global live-streaming record held by Hotstar itself. The platform had notched up 18.6 million concurrent viewers during the IPL 2019 final in May.
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The ICC Cricket World Cup is being streamed across six languages - English, Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, and Kannada. Incidentally, IPL 2019 was streamed in eight languages, and saw a 74 percent increase in average watch-time.
Hotstar has retained its social feature 'Watch ‘N Play' that was introduced during the IPL. It allows viewers to post comments and real-time commentary, and also interact with their family, friends and cricket experts through the app.
For the first time, viewers in the US and Canada are able to live-stream matches, either on the Hotstar app/website or via third-party devices that include Amazon Fire TV Stick, Roku TV, Apple TV, Android TV, and Samsung Smart TV.
In a statement to the media, Varun Narang, Chief Product Officer, Hotstar, said:
“We are delighted to have been able to deliver an uninterrupted cricket watching experience to such a large audience at once. Having achieved a single-day platform reach of 100 million demonstrates the indisputable technology prowess that Hotstar brings to the OTT industry."
Besides the average viewer, Hotstar claims to be delighting its advertisers too with targeted reach at scale. For the World Cup, the platform has roped in Dream 11, Uber Eats, Amazon Pay, and Coca Cola as co-presenting sponsors, and Royal Challenge, Acko, CEAT, and ICICI Lombard as associate sponsors.
"Hotstar’s immense reach and scale has always made it a preferred destination for advertisers across the country," it said in a statement.
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