MUMBAI, India and BANGALORE, India, May
20, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The twelfth edition of the
VIVO IPL cricket tournament concluded with another high for
reported online viewership. Hotstar, India's largest premium streaming
platform, leveraged Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM),
the intelligent edge platform to live stream the VIVO IPL 2019
final between the Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings to 18.6
million concurrent viewers.
The VIVO IPL 2018 edition saw Hotstar and Akamai shatter
multiple records for reported concurrency in quick succession. In
2019, Hotstar had already created history during the first three
weeks of the VIVO IPL by exceeding its total viewership of 2018.
During the course of the final match between Mumbai Indians and
Chennai Super Kings, the average concurrent viewership of 11.1
million users was higher than the peak concurrency set during the
VIVO IPL 2018 final with 10.3 million users. This average
concurrency was bolstered by Hotstar growing its platform reach
from 202 million users during the 2018 IPL tournament to over 300
million users during the course of this years' tournament.
According the to the GSMA, over 430 million people in
India have access to mobile
internet services, helping viewership and access to entertainment
in India to go mobile over the
past year. This was exemplified in the VIVO IPL 2019 final as well
with 91 percent of viewers watching the match via mobile. This
brings with it a set of challenges including planning for multiple
device types and network conditions in ensuring that mobile
internet users experience as little a lag as possible when it comes
to enjoying live sporting content such as the VIVO IPL 2019
final.
Commenting on the record, Varun
Narang, Chief Product Officer, Hotstar added, "At
Hotstar, we have an innate belief in delivering a game-changing
viewing experience to our consumers through ideas that challenge
the status quo. The achievements of this season once again bear
witness to Hotstar being the most preferred sports destination for
the country. With technology as our backbone and our all-round
expertise in driving scale, we are confident we will continue to
break global records and set new benchmarks with each passing
year."
"Viewership of the VIVO IPL event on mobile devices has
been growing exponentially over time, and we fully expect this
trend to continue. In setting these records and making sure that
viewers are enjoying live sporting events, the challenge will
always be being able to provide the necessary technology support
and delivery capability to platforms like Hotstar," said
Parimal Pandya, Vice President,
Media, Asia, Pacific and
Japan, Akamai Technologies.
"We have worked closely with Hotstar every year to design solutions
that help in scaling and ensuring as low latency as possible so
that viewers can enjoy a broadcast-quality experience. Along with
this, we have also delivered on expectations of managing
geographical spikes in traffic every year while matching users'
expectations of streaming quality."
VIVO IPL 2019 began on 23 March and wrapped up on 12 May 2019. The tournament started earlier than
in years past to account for the upcoming ICC Cricket World Cup
2019 which begins on the 30th of May and also the 2019
General Elections in India to
constitute the 17th Lok Sabha. Both these events are set
to attract millions of users over digital channels as they come to
a close.
About Hotstar
Hotstar is India's largest premium streaming platform
with more than 100,000 hours of drama and movies in 9 languages,
and coverage of every major global sporting event. Launched in
early 2015, it is one of India's
most downloaded apps and has attracted more than 300 million
monthly active users (MAUs) on the back of highly evolved video
streaming technology and high attention to the quality of
experience across devices and platforms. Hotstar has secured top
spots on the Google Play Store as well as the Apple App Store and
has consistently been named among the most popular apps on both
platforms since its launch.
For media queries, please contact:
Anmol Pandya, Archetype;
anmol.pandya@archetype.co
Gauri Deo, Archetype; gauri.deo@archetype.co
About Akamai
Akamai secures and delivers digital
experiences for the world's largest companies. Akamai's intelligent
edge platform surrounds everything, from the enterprise to the
cloud, so customers and their businesses can be fast, smart, and
secure. Top brands globally rely on Akamai to help them realize
competitive advantage through agile solutions that extend the power
of their multi-cloud architectures. Akamai keeps decisions, apps
and experiences closer to users than anyone — and attacks and
threats far away. Akamai's portfolio of edge security, web and
mobile performance, enterprise access and video delivery solutions
is supported by unmatched customer service, analytics and 24/7/365
monitoring. To learn why the world's top brands trust Akamai,
visit www.akamai.com, blogs.akamai.com,
or @Akamai on Twitter. You can find our global contact
information at www.akamai.com/locations.
For media queries, please contact:
Larry Loh
Akamai Technologies
lloh@akamai.com
Sandeep Deb Barman
20:20 MSL
Sandeep.varman@2020msl.com
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SOURCE Akamai Technologies, Inc.