Reliance Industries, the sprawling conglomerate led by Mukesh Ambani, is reportedly on the brink of acquiring Disney’s India business. This development underscores Reliance’s relentless pursuit of expanding its digital and television assets in an ever-evolving landscape.
Disney values its India business at approximately $10 billion, while Reliance, on the other hand, appraises these assets to be in the range of $7 billion to $8 billion, according to a report by Bloomberg News published on Monday. The report suggests that a formal deal could be inked and announced as soon as next month.
In a statement, Reliance confirmed its ongoing assessment of potential acquisitions, keeping in line with the company’s proactive approach to securing strategic assets.
This potential acquisition comes against the backdrop of Disney’s significant acquisition of 21st Century Fox’s entertainment assets in 2019, a transaction that was valued at a staggering $71.3 billion. One of the pivotal aspects of this acquisition was the inclusion of Star India, which proved instrumental in Disney’s global streaming expansion. It granted Disney exclusive broadcast and streaming rights to the immensely popular Indian Premier League cricket matches, a wide array of multilingual TV channels, and a stake in a prominent Bollywood film production company. At the time of the acquisition, Star’s Hotstar had already garnered a substantial user base of approximately 150 million monthly active users.
However, the streaming landscape in India has experienced shifts in recent times. Although Hotstar initially dominated the Indian video streaming scene for several quarters, its supremacy has somewhat waned. This change in fortunes can be attributed to the rise of Viacom18, backed by Reliance, which secured the rights to stream IPL cricket matches for five years at a cost of around $3 billion. Disney also paid $3 billion for the same five-year rights but specifically for broadcasting the content on TV.
Reliance, meanwhile, has been strategically fortifying its own streaming platform, JioCinema. Over the past year, the company has successfully recruited top leaders and engineering talent to enhance its content offerings. JioCinema now boasts a library of premium content from notable sources such as HBO and NBC.
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As for Disney’s Hotstar, it has experienced a dip in its subscriber base this year, shedding roughly 20 million subscribers, with many viewers flocking to JioCinema to catch IPL matches. In an attempt to regain its footing, Hotstar is presently streaming the ongoing cricket World Cup to mobile viewers at no cost, with the hope of luring back its audience. The Disney streaming app even recently reclaimed the global on-demand video streaming record, boasting 35 million concurrent viewers during a cricket match. This record was broken just this past Sunday during a game between India and New Zealand when concurrent viewership surged to a remarkable 43 million.
