Comprehensive SWOT Analysis of Hotstar – The 2nd largest OTT Platform in India

Updated on: Dec 16, 2021
SWOT Analysis of Hotstar - Featured Image

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In our previous article, we unveiled the marketing mix of the biggest entertainer in the world and the famous OTT platform, Netflix. In this article, we will see the SWOT analysis of Hotstar.

Hotstar or disney+ Hotstar is the 2nd largest OTT Platform in India. An Indian over-the-top streaming service disney+Hotstar is owned by Novi Digital Entertainment of Star India. Hotstar is popular among customers because of its affordability. People prefer to use Hotstar to watch domestic programmes and sports content that are telecasted on Indian television. Other than that Hotstar is also famous for telecasting some of the famous web series.

The company is one of the market leaders in India due to its efficient services and strong visibility. In today’s world digital marketing is very important to create a brand image, if you want to learn more about digital marketing and its different attributes do check out Free Digital Marketing Masterclass by Karan Shah the founder and CEO of IIDE.

In this blog, we will learn about the SWOT analysis of Hotstar, but before that let’s know about the company.

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About Hotstar

SWOT Analysis of Hotstar - Disney+ Hotstar

Disney+ Hotstar is an OTT ( Over The Top) video streaming platform owned by Novi Digital Entertainment Private Limited, which is owned by Star India Private Limited. Disney+ Hotstar nowadays offers over a million hours of TV content and movies across 9 languages, and every major sport covered live. It is most valuable for cricket telecasts. 

The best thing about Disney+ Hotstar is it can provide the best quality of video automatically by knowing the availability of bandwidth at that time in that area. They give accurate search results, unlike the other OTT platforms. Due to pandemics like covid in which people can’t move to the theatre in such a situation, people enjoyed new blockbuster movies by sitting in their home. That’s the best thing about Disney+ Hotstar. Hot tar is available both on Android and IOS.

Quick Stats on Hotstar
Founder Star India
Year Founded 2015
Origin India
No. of Employees 874+
Company Type Subsidiary
Market Cap N/A
Annual Revenue Rs 1670.6 Crore (2020)
Net Income/ Profit Rs 1069.8 Crore (2020)

 

SWOT Analysis of Hotstar - Disney+ Hotstar Desktop Website Outlook


Products & Services by Hotstar

  • Video Streaming
  • Tv Content
  • Movies
  • Sports
  • Web Series


Competitors of Hotstar

  • Netflix
  • Prime Video
  • Voot
  • Zee5
  • Viacom


SWOT Analysis of
Hotstar

SWOT Analysis is a useful technique for developing business strategies for both new and current businesses. This simplified methodology is used to assess a company’s competitive standing. SWOT analysis of Hotstar can help the organization develop effective and efficient business strategies.

SWOT Analysis of Hotstar - SWOT Infographics of Hotstar

Below is an explicit guide to the SWOT analysis of Hotstar.

Strengths of Hotstar

  • Continuous Video Playback: Hotstar has an adaptive video streaming platform. It makes sure that the best quality of the video should be played automatically concerning the availability of bandwidth present in that area at that time. And also the viewers can choose the video quality that best suits them.
  • Smart Search: The best thing about Hotstar is that it gives accurate search results with rapid auto-complete suggestions.
  • Content Catalogue: Hotstar provides up to date and broadcasts the latest TV series and movies from India and every part of the world.
  • Extraordinary Content: The main strength of Hotstar is the stardom that it’s maintaining from Star India shows and its original content.
  • Accessibility: Hotstar is accessible both on android and iOS. And everyone can watch through their official website.


Weaknesses of Hotstar

  • Niche Content: This platform only features family-friendly content which is not accepted by all. And it mainly highlights cricket for which other contents are not valued as cricket.
  • Expensive to Watch Tv Content: As they mainly focus on content that is already available on television so people prefer to watch them on television rather than the OTT platform.
  • Regional Content: Hotstar has so far delivered just 8 regional content with a median rating of just 5.9. So, it seems that its regional content portfolio collection for the future needs to be improved upon.


Opportunities for Hotstar

  • Acquisitions: One of the best opportunities for the company is to take all rights and reservations of other mass media companies like Marvel, Fox Star Studios. Acquiring a big media company leads to the growth of the company. Other than that it can also collaborate with top companies for its universal growth.
  • Lower the Price of Subscription: As youths in all parts of the country are very interested in sports and originals, youth mostly prefer sites where they can get all these at a lower price. Also, household women prefer to watch a lot of sitcoms and daily soaps so reducing prices can engage a lot more customers.
  • Educational Platform: As nowadays every student prefers digital education over offline classes, so the company can also release some educational movies so that everyone and especially children can learn various skills by staying at their residence just like students at IIDE are learning various digital marketing skills taught by industry experts through online videos and live sessions.


Threats to Hotstar

  • Tough Competitors: One of the biggest threats to Hotstar is its competitor. There are a lot of online platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video which are more acceptable than Hotstar. So the company should focus on making unique content so that the viewers automatically push themselves towards Hotstar.
  • Addiction: Teenagers nowadays are technology-friendly and by which they are not concentrating enough on their studies rather than more addicted to OTT platforms. This has led to a bad brand image of OTT platforms in parents’ eyes. 
  • Competitor’s Price Fluctuation: Recently, Netflix has reduced its subscription prices which makes viewers purchase subscriptions of Netflix rather than of Hotstar.
  • Unlock: When the lockdown was implemented people were used to watching movies on OTT platforms and several big production houses also launched Bollywood movies on the OTT platform. But after unlock, the situation is getting back to what it was before lockdown. This shift of change is affecting the revenue of Hotstar.

This ends our comprehensive SWOT analysis of Hotstar. Let us conclude our learning below.

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To Conclude

The SWOT Analysis of Hotstar mentioned in this blog has brought out the main strength of the company which includes continuous video playback, smart search, content catalogue, extraordinary content and most importantly accessibility.

The weaknesses of the company mainly are niche content and being expensive for some users. And most importantly it mainly focuses on sports rather than other things. The company can increase its market value by collaborating with other mass media companies and most importantly due to more viewers it can also collaborate with top comic production and another major factor in reducing its subscription value.

Hotstar is putting a lot of investment in online mediums for its services to reach the maximum number of people in this era of digitalization. If you are interested in learning digital marketing, don’t forget to check out IIDE’s 3 Month Advanced Digital Marketing Course.

We hope this blog on the SWOT Analysis of Hotstar has given you a good insight into the company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

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Aditya Shastri

Lead Trainer & Head of Learning & Development at IIDE

Leads the Learning & Development segment at IIDE. He is a Content Marketing Expert and has trained 6000+ students and working professionals on various topics of Digital Marketing. He has been a guest speaker at prominent colleges in India including IIMs......[Read full bio]

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