JioHotstar crosses 1 billion downloads, emerges as India’s closest challenger to Netflix

New Delhi: In a major milestone for India’s streaming ecosystem, JioHotstar has crossed one billion downloads on Google Play, joining the elite global club of apps with over a billion installs.

The platform, which now boasts 300 million paid subscribers and over 500 million monthly active users, has firmly established itself as India’s leading streaming destination. This achievement comes at a time when India’s media and entertainment industry is at a turning point.

At the recently concluded WAVES 2025 Summit in Mumbai, Reliance Chairman Mukesh Ambani outlined his ambition to make media and entertainment the group’s next $100 billion growth frontier.  At the centre of that vision is JioHotstar, the merged entity of JioCinema and Disney+ Hotstar, which has quickly become the backbone of Reliance’s digital media play.

“By combining deep local relevance with technological innovation, JioHotstar is redefining how entertainment inspires, connects, and creates value,” the company said in a statement. 

The platform’s growth has been fuelled by its diverse regional catalogue, live sports rights, and seamless streaming experience across devices. Its integration into Jio’s wider digital ecosystem has also made content discovery, billing, and access more frictionless for millions of users.

The timing of JioHotstar’s milestone is significant. While it continues to dominate India’s streaming landscape by volume and reach, Netflix remains its closest global rival in terms of premium content and international visibility. 

At the same summit, Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos announced a $50 million co-production fund for Indian creators, the company’s largest single investment in the Indian content ecosystem so far.

Netflix has already released 150 original Indian titles, shot across 90 cities, nurturing regional storytelling with global potential. Sarandos compared India’s creative moment to South Korea’s breakout with Squid Game, calling Indian storytelling “vibrant, deep-rooted, and ready for global impact.”

Meanwhile, Uday Shankar, Vice Chairperson of JioStar, the joint venture between Reliance’s Viacom18 and Disney India, revealed that the company plans to invest Rs 2.33 lakh crore in FY2025-26 to expand its Indian content playbook. 

“This is not about buying global formats. It’s about scaling Indian stories for Indian audiences, across every screen and language,” Shankar said.

These parallel announcements signal a new phase of competition in India’s streaming market. Netflix continues to strengthen its creative ecosystem from the top down, while JioHotstar is building dominance through accessibility, regional depth, and large-scale integration with India’s digital and telecom infrastructure.

With a billion downloads under its belt, JioHotstar has become the first Indian streaming app to reach this scale, positioning itself as Netflix’s strongest competitor not just in India, but potentially across other emerging markets. 

As global and domestic players pour billions into India’s content economy, the battle for digital entertainment supremacy is clearly shifting from audience acquisition to long-term ecosystem control.