JioCinema's free subscription model brought in more than two third of its total users: Bobble AI report

Bobble AI conducted a study to understand the comparative dynamics around the digital viewership of the Indian Premier League (IPL) on Jio Cinema.

The Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 has brought OTT platform JIO Cinema into the big league during which the application’s penetration has grown by almost 4X from 10.73% to 40.26% which was only 3% last year during IPL, claimed a data report released by India’s largest Conversation Media Platform Bobble AI.

As per the latest data report, Jio Cinema’s free subscription model for IPL broadcast with an aim to scale the user base of Jio Cinema has paid off with the engagement of the app increasing manifold due to IPL and digital engagement of the platform reaching heights that have never been seen before in its history.

Indian Premier League, since its inception, has been the most-watched sporting event in India. Jio Cinema bagged the streaming rights for IPL for the period between 2023 to 2027, so this year IPL was streaming on Jio Cinema, before which Hotstar had the legacy of streaming it since its inception. Jio Cinema is offering a free subscription for its feed, whereas, Disney+Hotstar followed a paid subscription model.`

The Market Intelligence (MI) unit of Bobble AI conducted a study to understand the comparative dynamics around the digital viewership of the Indian Premier League (IPL) on Jio Cinema and a comparison of the viewership with IPL 2022, which streamed on Disney+Hotstar. The study tries to compare the engagement and penetration of the respective apps and the impact of the paid subscription versus the free subscription models. The research was done in a privacy-compliant manner by the market intelligence division of Bobble AI - India’s largest conversation media platform, using its first-party data of over 85 million people/devices. The periods chosen for the study were the pre-IPL 2022 period (26th Feb - 20th March), the IPL 2022 period (26th March - 29th May), the pre-IPL 2023 periods (1st March - 25th March), and the IPL 2023 period (31st March - 10th May)

As per the latest Bobble AI data report, there was a 4X increase in the penetration of JioCinema (10.73% to 40.26%) during IPL, the penetration of Jio Cinema was under 3% during the last year, it got an initial push during the FIFA World Cup 2022 increasing the penetration of the app to 9% while IPL 2022 gave an impetus of just about 3.5% to the penetration of Disney+Hotstar (30.24% to 33.51%).It’s interesting to note that the penetration of Disney+Hotstar was high even in the pre-IPL period, this can be explained by the fact that a survey conducted by Ormax showed that some of the most watched shows and movies on OTT in India were on Disney+Hotstar and none of the high ranking content was from JioCinema, reflected by the low penetration of JioCinema in the pre-IPL period. However, the rise in JioCinema’s penetration during IPL shows the power that IPL has in terms of attracting eyeballs.

IPL 2023 triggered approx 72% new app installations for Jio Cinema

The data report highlights that the comparison of the new installs of the two apps during IPL also follows a trend similar to penetration. The proportion of new installs to total installs was approx 72% for Jio Cinema during IPL 2023, which shows that IPL and the free subscription model of Jio Cinema brought in more than two third of the total users of Jio Cinema, whereas, the same figure for Hotstar during the IPL 2022 was 7.43%, reflecting that a majority of their users had already been using Hotstar before the IPL. Hence, the data shows that the free subscription model had a remarkable impact, which was not observed in the case of the paid subscription model of Disney+Hotstar during IPL 2022.

The rise of penetration and new installs were found to be substantial, however, downloading an app doesn’t necessarily mean that the app is being used, so, in the Bobble AI report the open rate was studied to understand the activity of the app. As per Bobble AI’s first party data, the Disney+Hotstar did witness a rise in open rate during the IPL 2022, and so did JioCinema in the current season, however, the increase for Jio Cinema was way more substantial (53% to 89%), the open rate for Jio Cinema also got an initial push during the Fifa World Cup, before which the Open Rate was under 40%. The increase in the open rate during IPL showed that even the people who had the app installed on their phones got active on the app during the IPL.

When it comes to the growth in the number of sessions during the IPL, it was much higher for JioCinema (19 to 95) in 2023 as compared to Disney+Hotstar (26 to 81) in 2022. Even in the case of the average session time (during the entire IPL season), the growth for JioCinema (117 mins to 657 mins) was higher than Disney+Hotstar (253 mins to 640 mins) in the current IPL season. This shows that even before IPL 2022, a considerable amount of content was being consumed on Disney+Hotstar, but for Jio Cinema, people discovered the other content due to the onboarding that happened due to the IPL, confirmed by the fact that the number of sessions even during IPL was higher for JioCinema as compared with Disney+Hotstar, whereas the number of sessions was higher for Disney+Hotstar in the pre-IPL period.

The Bobble AI data report shows that the free subscription model devised by Jio Cinema for IPL 2023 has reaped rich dividends for the platform by increasing the engagement of the platform manifolds. The usage of the platform has increased way more than the increase witnessed by Disney+Hotstar during IPL 2022. The data also shows that the audiences brought in by the IPL are also viewing the other content on the Jio Cinema app, which never gained much traction in the past. Hence, it can be concluded that with the eyeballs increasing substantially, Jio Cinema is going to be the next major OTT platform. Beyond OTTs, during IPL seasons Advertisers have been actively leveraging digital advertising in unique and innovative platforms such as Bobble AI’s conversation media platform built on top of smartphone keyboard service.