iWorld
India vs Pakistan: Hotstar clocks highest-ever single day reach of 100 million
MUMBAI: Hotstar, India’s largest premium streaming platform, once again shattered records by hitting an unprecedented daily active user number of 100 million during the India vs. Pakistan match on 16th June, making this the highest-ever single day reach for the platform. Underlining the fact that Hotstar’s viewership continues to grow across the width and breadth of India, 66% of the 100 Mn users came in from towns beyond the big metro cities. The streaming giant also registered record-breaking concurrency of 15.6 million, the highest ever for an ODI match, marking a 1.7x increase in average concurrency compared to any other India match.
Unmatched in its sheer scale, this season of ICC Cricket World Cup is being streamed across 6 languages – English, Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, and Kannada. Hotstar has also retained its exciting social layer of #KoiYaarNahiFar with the Watch ‘N Play feature successfully creating an unparalleled and engaging cricket-watching experience for all the Hotstar users. Through this feature, Hotstar enables friends coming together irrespective of their location, allowing them to make their voices heard by chatting about the match and their Watch ‘N Play experience, not only with their friends and family, but also with experts and celebrities.
Commenting on the development, Hotstar chief product officer Varun Narang, said “We are delighted to have been able to deliver an uninterrupted cricket watching experience to such a large audience at once. Having achieved a single day platform reach of 100 million demonstrates the indisputable technology prowess that Hotstar brings to the OTT industry. This remarkable achievement has helped us set a new viewership benchmark.”
In addition to India, Hotstar is bringing the ICC Cricket World Cup to consumers in the US and Canada as well, who are tuning in to the platform via the app, on the web (us.hotstar.com), Google play store, app store, as well as on living room devices like Roku TV, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV Stick, Android TV, and Samsung Smart TV.
Hotstar’s immense reach and scale has always made it a preferred destination for advertisers across the country. Offering ad targeting for live sports at scale, the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 on Hotstar is an exciting affair for all involved, including co-presenting sponsors Dream 11, Uber Eats, Amazon Pay, and Coca Cola, and associate sponsors Royal Challenge, Acko, CEAT, and ICICI Lombard.
iWorld
X launches XChat messaging app on iOS with calls and encryption
Standalone app marks shift from “everything app” vision, adds E2E messaging.
MUMBAI: From one big app to many small chats, X seems to be splitting its ambitions. X has rolled out its standalone messaging app, XChat, to iOS users, opening up a new front in its evolving product strategy. The app allows users to connect with existing X contacts through private and group messages, file sharing, as well as audio and video calls. The launch follows a limited beta phase, where the platform tested the product with a smaller user base to refine the experience. Now available publicly, XChat marks a notable pivot from earlier ambitions championed by Elon Musk to turn X into a single “everything app” combining messaging, payments, commerce and more.
Instead, the company under xAI ownership and backed by SpaceX appears to be building a suite of standalone applications, each targeting specific use cases while expanding its broader ecosystem.
At launch, XChat includes end-to-end encrypted messaging, PIN-based access, disappearing messages, and features such as message editing, deletion for all participants, and screenshot blocking. The company has also said the app is free from advertisements and tracking mechanisms, positioning it as a privacy-first alternative in a crowded messaging space.
However, security claims around the platform are likely to face scrutiny. Earlier iterations of XChat drew criticism from experts who argued it fell short of established encrypted platforms like Signal. With the wider rollout, the app is expected to undergo fresh evaluation to assess whether those concerns have been addressed.
Beyond messaging, XChat will also house X’s Communities feature, which is being discontinued on the main platform due to low usage and spam concerns. Migrating these users could provide an early boost to adoption, effectively turning XChat into both a communication and community hub.
The move underscores a broader recalibration at X less about cramming everything into one app, and more about spreading bets across multiple touchpoints, one message at a time.
