The Internet Goes Mainstream; Hotstar Shatters Another Ceiling Delivered On Akamai, Concurrent Viewers On Hotstar Soar Past 10 Million Mark

The eleventh edition of the VIVO IPL 2018 wrapped up with a historic flourish. Hotstar, India’s leading video streaming platform, leveraged Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the world’s largest and most trusted cloud delivery platform, to soar past 10 million concurrent viewers and finish the tournament with a peak of 10.3 million simultaneous users.

While this season of the VIVO IPL has featured multiple high points with Hotstar breaking world records during the past six weeks, last night’s match marked a new milestone. VIVO IPL 2018’s final match was broadcast in eight languages on 10 TV channels across the Star network, as well as Hotstar on Sunday. The 11 different feeds were all available on demand on Hotstar. The service breached the 10 million mark two balls before the Chennai Super Kings claimed their trophy for the third time in the tournament’s history.

In addition to being a resounding testimony to Hotstar’s technology backbone and the strength of Akamai’s media delivery platform, last night’s match is evidence that mobile video has indeed gone mainstream.

VIVO IPL 2018 began on 7 April and wrapped up on 27 May 2018. The six-week tournament marked the aggressive return of the Chennai Super Kings to VIVO IPL, after a two-year ban. Off-field, the tournament was entirely reimagined by Star India and Hotstar, with emphasis on substantive sports programming and analysis, leveraging mobile interactivity with gaming features like Watch’NPlay and VR added to the mix.

Mumbai/Bangalore, 28 May 2018