Disney Plus Hotstar Eying up Launch in Malaysia (Report)
Plans may be afoot for the launch of streaming service Disney Plus in Malaysia. In the past few days verified accounts for the service appeared on Facebook and Instagram, though the Facebook one was subsequently taken offline.
The news was first reported by unofficial fan sites including What’s On Disney Plus. Contacted by Variety, Disney offered no comment. The company is, however, expected to announce details of its plans for Disney Plus in neighboring Singapore at a virtual event on Feb. 2.
More from Variety
Within the Asia-Pacific region, the service is currently only available in Australia, New Zealand, India and Indonesia.
Unlike Hong Kong, South Korea and Japan, Malaysia was not on the list of 2021 launch territories announced by Disney in December at the company’s investor day presentation. But given recent insight into Disney Plus’ roaring start in neighboring Indonesia, Disney might be keen to accelerate the launch schedule.
Supporting that conjecture, the new social media accounts use the brand name Disney Plus Hotstar, a revision of Disney’s Indian OTT platform Hotstar that was also used for the Indonesia launch in September last year. What’s On Disney Plus also shows Disney advertising several Kuala Lumpur-based job vacancies, including customer relationship manager and executive producer for original production and content acquisition.
Last week, new data from consultancy and research firm Media Partners Asia, showed that Disney Plus Hotstar in Indonesia had picked up 2.5 million subscribers in the four months since it went live. That helped double the country’s number of paid-for video streaming subscriptions. In Indonesia, Disney partnered with cellular phones group Telkomsel to launch the service at a low price point and with a large lineup of local content.
People of South Asian origin, predominantly Tamil, are Malaysia’s third largest ethnic group, after Malays and Chinese. Described locally as “Indian” they number about two million and account for about 7% of the country’s 29 million population.
Best of Variety
Sign up for Variety’s Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
