“We recently announced that Disney+ would launch in India through the Hotstar service in conjunction with the beginning of the Indian Premier League cricket season. Given the delay of the season, we have made the decision to briefly pause the roll-out of Disney+ and will announce a new revised premiere date for the service soon”, said Uday Shankar, president of The Walt Disney Company Asia Pacific.
Hotstar earlier tested the service with a limited beta release, allowing Hotstar Premium (and VIP) users to access ‘all’ Disney+ content in India ‘briefly’ at no extra cost. The beta testing of Disney+ has since been closed.
“A limited release of the beta version of the Disney+ Hotstar app is currently being tested with a small number of consumers, in preparation for the full-fledged app launch on 29th March”, a Hotstar spokesperson said at the time.
The beta test went live on 11 March in India, three weeks before Disey+’s planned official launch on the local market. Hotstar had been silently updating its app and logo ahead of Disney+ India launch and both the things were updated briefly during the beta test. Hotstar had rebranded the app as Disney+Hotstar – with Disney+ content resting inside a separate tab in the Hotstar app for both iOS and Android.
