CHENNAI, Dec 9 (Reuters) - India's JioHotstar plans to invest $444 million over five years to acquire and produce content from south India, an executive said on Monday, as the Walt Disney and Reliance
Industries-owned streaming platform seeks to capitalize on growing demand for regional cinema.
The expansion comes at a time when the Mumbai-based Hindi film industry is struggling to regain its allure in the world's most-populous country even as south Indian films gain wider acceptance locally and globally, rivaling Hindi films' box-office performance.
"To reiterate our belief in this market, we are committed to spend 40 billion rupees ... over the (next) 5 years on JioHotstar," said Krishnan Kutty, the head of entertainment for southern India at JioStar, the Reliance-Disney joint venture that runs the streaming platform.
JioHotstar, which has more than 200 million subscribers and competes with Amazon's Prime Video and Netflix in India, plans to more than double the number of subscribers, including through regional and influencer-based content. It did not provide a timeline.
South India has four widely spoken languages, each with a vibrant film industry: Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam.
Consumers in southern Indian states spend 70% more time on JioHotstar, whose cheapest plan costs as little as 50 rupees (about 50 U.S. cents) a month, Kutty said.
JioHotstar will invest in series and movies from the region and also expand its portfolio of non-scripted content, Kutty said. Movies that have already been released in cinemas will make up most of its investments in films, he said.
When asked about the impact of Netflix's deal to acquire Warner Bros Discovery's TV, film studios and streaming business, Sushant Sreeram, the chief marketing officer at JioStar, said the partnership with Warner Bros will "continue till its end date." He did not disclose the date.
Paramount Skydance has since launched a hostile bid for Warner Bros Discovery.
($1 = 90.0350 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Praveen Paramasivam in Chennai; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala)
