According to data analytics firm ComScore, which is located in Virginia, almost half of India's internet users viewed movies, television series, news, and sports on streaming platforms controlled by Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries Ltd. and Walt Disney Co. prior to their merger to build a media behemoth.

Reliance and Disney reached an agreement last month to buy Disney's Indian operations, becoming a $8.5 billion media conglomerate that produces everything from news and sports material to movies and television shows.

A 46.5% market share, or about 243.5 million customers, accessed three streaming services in January: Reliance's JioCinema and JioTV, Disney's Hotstar. According to Comscore data, Hotstar had over 114 million unique visits for the month, while JioCinema and JioTV had over 129 million visitors.

For JioCinema, JioTV, and Hotstar to succeed, cricket streaming has been crucial. Due to its coverage of the Indian Premier League, Reliance platforms had a significant increase in viewing between March and May 2023, according to Comscore data. In November of the previous year, 191 million people visited Hotstar, largely due to the Men's Cricket World Cup.

Rivals Prime Video+miniTV from Amazon.com Inc. and Netflix Inc., as well as regional platforms like MXPlayer from Times Internet and ZEE5 from Zee Entertainment Ltd., are predicted to suffer from the combination.

Traditional broadcasters would be impacted by the merger company's dominance of the Indian advertising industry, according to a research note released last week by Karan Taurani, senior vice president of Elara Securities India Pvt. Taurani stated that other linear TV broadcasters, such as Sun TV, Z Sony, and others, "may not be able to scale up on market share" as a result of the consolidation.