Disney+ India Launch Postponed Until April 3 Amid Coronavirus Pandemic

The streaming service was supposed to become available in the country on March 29, but the launch plans are on a brief "pause" amid the postponement of the start of the Indian Premier League cricket season.

The Walt Disney Co. has postponed the launch of its streaming service Disney+ in India amid the coronavirus pandemic.

It was set to become available on March 29 to coincide with the start of the Indian Premier League cricket tournament, whose start has been delayed to mid-April due to the virus. The company didn't immediately unveil a new launch date. On March 31, it unveiled April 3 as the new launch date.

Uday Shankar, president of The Walt Disney Co. Asia Pacific and chairman of Star and Disney India, said in a statement: "Given the delay of the season, we have made the decision to briefly pause the rollout of Disney+ and will announce a new revised premiere date for the service soon."

Indian streamer Hotstar, which Disney acquired in the $71.3 billion takeover of large parts of 21st Century Fox, previously rebranded its mobile app with the Disney Plus Hotstar name.

Disney+ is offering Disney, Marvel, Lucasfilm and Pixar content, as well as such originals as The Mandalorian, The World According to Jeff Goldblum and High School Musical: The Musical – The Series.

Content in India will be available in English, with much programming also available in dubbed versions in the Hindi, Tamil and Telugu languages. The streaming subscription in India has been priced at 299 rupees ($4.05) per month or 999 rupees ($13.55) for a year.

Disney in late January moved up the launch of Disney+ in parts of Europe by a week, setting its unveiling in the biggest Western European countries for March 24.

Disney recently said that it had signed up 26.5 million people to Disney+ by the end of 2019 and reached 28.6 million paid subscribers as of Feb 3. "The launch of Disney+ has been enormously successful, exceeding even our greatest expectations," executive chairman Bob Iger said during the company's most recent earnings conference call.