HBO Max launches in India via exclusive JioHotstar partnership at ₹49 per month

HBO Max has launched in India through an exclusive partnership with JioHotstar, the platform formed from Reliance Industries' $8.5 billion merger with Disney's Indian operations. The HBO Max-branded hub is available as an add-on to JioHotstar's 100M+ paid subscribers at ₹49/month (~$0.50), making it among the cheapest HBO access points globally. Launch content includes Euphoria Season 3, House of the Dragon Season 3, the Harry Potter series, and the return of Friends and The Big Bang Theory to Indian streaming. The deal reflects Warner Bros. Discovery's strategy of partnering with dominant local platforms rather than building standalone services in markets with low per-user revenue. JioHotstar controls roughly 85% of India's streaming landscape with 390M monthly active users, and the partnership lets WBD monetise its catalogue at scale without direct-to-consumer infrastructure costs. India's OTT market is projected to reach $4.5B by 2026, though revenue-per-user remains far below Western markets.