Hotstar had 75 million monthly active subscribers in India at the end of 2017 compared to 5 million for Netflix, according to tech consultancy Counterpoint Research. Another global competitor, Amazon Prime Video, had 11 million users in India.
Amazon — which has committed over $5 billion to its overall Indian business — has been adding original content from India to its streaming platform, with more than a dozen shows in various stages of development.
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings acknowledged Monday that the company is playing catch up to Hotstar and Google’s (GOOGL) YouTube in India.