JioHotstar expands into MENA through a partnership with Starzplay

JioHotstar, the Reliance Industries-backed streaming platform with more than 500 million monthly active users, is expanding into the Middle East and North Africa through a partnership with Starzplay, one of the region’s largest streaming services. The push follows JioHotstar’s earlier debut in the U.K., Canada, and Singapore.

Under the partnership announced Tuesday, JioHotstar will get a dedicated section inside Starzplay’s app and website, offering Indian films, TV shows, originals, and reality franchises across multiple languages. That setup differs from JioHotstar’s September launch in the U.K., Canada, and Singapore, where it replaced Hotstar and debuted as a stand-alone service. The expansion is part of Reliance’s push to turn JioHotstar into a global streaming platform after building a large audience in India; MENA’s sizable South Asian diaspora gives it a sizable potential audience for its Indian films, shows, and original programming.

As with its earlier launches, JioHotstar’s own sports offering in India won’t be available in MENA. A plan bundling JioHotstar with Starzplay’s sports offering, including cricket, is priced at AED 49.99 (about $13.60) a month, while JioHotstar alone is available through Starzplay’s Plus plan at AED 34.99 (around $9.50). New JioHotstar originals will premiere in the region at the same time as in India, with audio in up to 10 languages; the catalog spans Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, and Bangla, including shows such as “Bigg Boss” and “Koffee with Karan,” with particular emphasis on Malayalam programming given the region’s large Malayali population.

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 service launched in India in February last year. Before JioHotstar’s own MENA launch, Hotstar was available in the region: Disney Star expanded its distribution deal with evision, the media and entertainment arm of e&, in 2024, making it the regional home of Hotstar Specials. Evision is also a major shareholder in Starzplay, where JioHotstar now gets its first dedicated streaming presence in the region.

Starzplay counts more than 2.3 million subscribers and has built a sizable South Asian audience partly through its cricket offering. Financial terms of the partnership were not disclosed, though Starzplay CEO Maaz Sheikh described bringing JioHotstar to the platform as a “strategic investment.”

Why it matters

The deal gives JioHotstar its first dedicated presence in the Middle East and North Africa, tapping one of the world’s largest South Asian diaspora communities as Reliance pushes to turn the platform into a global streaming service.