NEW DELHI: Continuing with its international roll-out in 2021, streaming service Disney+ may soon be planning to hit the Malaysian shores, suggest new reports.
Disney+ is currently available only in four countries in the Asia-Pacific region which includes Australia, India, Indonesia, and New Zealand. The company had announced its plans for launch in Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea in 2021 during its investor day presentation in December last year. Malaysia was not on the list.
However, unofficial fan sites including What’s On Disney Plus have recently reported that some new verified accounts of Disney+ have sprung up on Facebook and Instagram in the last couple of days which hint at the launch of the service in Malaysia. The posts had gone live with just a simple text stating, ‘loading’, triggering fans' interest. These accounts use the brand name Disney+ Hotstar, a revision of Disney’s Indian OTT platform Hotstar that was used for the Indonesia launch in September last year, which amplified the buzz. No confirmation could be provided, as the accounts were soon taken down.
There has been no official statement from Disney yet.
But considering the recent insights into the streaming service’s roaring start in neighbouring Indonesia, Disney might be keen to accelerate the launch schedule, reported Variety. People of South Asian origin, predominantly Tamil who are also described as ‘Indians’, are Malaysia’s third largest ethnic group, after Malays and Chinese. They constitute roughly for about seven per cent of the country’s 29 million population.
The fan site also showed that Disney has been advertising several Kuala Lumpur-based job vacancies, including customer relationship manager and executive producer for original production and content acquisition.
Meanwhile, the mouse house is expected to share its plan for Disney+ in neighbouring Singapore during a virtual event on 2 February 2020.
Disney+ Hotstar is also faring well in Indonesia, where it has picked up 2.5 million subscribers in the four months since it went live, according to data shared by consultancy and research firm Media Partners Asia. This has doubled the country’s number of paid-for video streaming subscriptions.
