The new head of Disney+ Hotstar India has years of experience breaking into the Indian market.
Sajith Sivanandan, who will join the leading OTT platform in October, has worked at Google for nearly 15 years. He is currently the Managing Director and Head of Business for Google Pay and Next Billion User Initiatives in Asia Pacific.
During his tenure at the tech giant, he was very focused on emerging markets in Asia, including India. Google Pay is an India-first innovation that debuted as Tez in September 2017. Under Sivanandan’s leadership, it has grown rapidly and most of its 150 million global users are now located in India.
” Rebecca Campbell, chairman of his Disney International Content and Operations Group, told Variety that his extensive experience in the region, coupled with his strong leadership and business management skills, A huge asset.
Disney+ Hotstar’s next phase of growth
With over 58 million subscribers, Disney+ Hotstar leads Indian streaming The media market. However, its growth story took some hits, the biggest of which was the loss of streaming rights to the big Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket tournament.
Its local The regional language boards of production are also not as strong as Amazon. Then Netflix “moved closer” and produced more content at lower prices.
“After experiencing rapid growth in recent years, India’s OTT [streaming The media] market has entered a transitional phase, and Disney star president K Madhavan told Variety that we need a clever way to innovate growth.
“Sajith’s extensive experience over the years makes him the perfect person to lead Disney+ Hotstar on this journey.”
In some In one sense, this is the return of Sivanandan. In 1996, he founded Star TV, now a Disney brand, in India. There, he managed the North Indian market for the music channel Channel V.
“The opportunity to go back to my hometown and start my career with a very talented team serving Disney+ Hotstar subscribers in India and emerging countries is both a privilege , is also an honor,” Sivanandan told Variety.
