JioHotstar, the Reliance-backed Indian streaming service with more than 500 million monthly active users, is entering the Middle East and North Africa through a partnership with Starzplay rather than with a standalone app — its first dedicated presence in the region.
Under the arrangement announced Tuesday, JioHotstar gets a dedicated section inside Starzplay's app and website, offering Indian films, TV shows, originals and reality franchises in multiple languages. It is a different playbook from September, when the service replaced Hotstar and launched as a standalone offering in the UK, Canada and Singapore. Sports, which JioHotstar treats as a core asset in India, is not part of the MENA launch.
Pricing reflects the bundling logic: a plan combining JioHotstar with Starzplay's sports offering, including cricket, costs AED 49.99 (about $13.60) a month, while access through Starzplay's Plus tier is AED 34.99 (about $9.50). New JioHotstar originals will premiere in the region simultaneously with their release in India, with audio available in up to 10 languages. The catalogue spans Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu and Bangla among others, and includes shows such as Bigg Boss and Koffee with Karan; JioHotstar said it is placing particular emphasis on Malayalam programming given the region's large Malayali population.
The logic is demographic. MENA holds one of the world's largest South Asian diaspora communities, giving an Indian-content service a ready audience without the cost of building distribution from scratch. Starzplay, with more than 2.3 million subscribers, has already built a South Asian base partly through cricket, and its shareholder evision — the media arm of e& — previously served as the regional home of Hotstar Specials under a 2024 Disney Star distribution deal.
JioHotstar was created after Reliance and Disney merged their Indian media businesses into an $8.5 billion joint venture in 2024, combining JioCinema and Disney+ Hotstar. The MENA launch extends Reliance's effort to turn domestic scale into a global streaming business. Financial terms of the partnership were not disclosed; Starzplay CEO Maaz Sheikh described bringing JioHotstar onto the platform as a "strategic investment."
