JioStar hits it for six as viewers binge on cricket and Bigg Boss

MUMBAI: JioStar is printing money faster than India’s cricket team scores runs. The entertainment behemoth raked in Rs 8,010 crore in gross revenues during the October-December quarter, a tidy 10.8 per cent jump from the previous quarter’s Rs 7,232 crore. Strip out the statutory bits, and revenue from operations clocked in at Rs 6,896 crore, up from Rs 6,179 crore.

But here’s where things get interesting. Whilst revenues climbed steadily, EBITDA margins took a bit of a tumble. The third quarter delivered Rs 1,303 crore in operating profits with an 18.9 per cent margin significantly down from the previous quarter’s rather plush 28.1 per cent and Rs 1,738 crore haul. The culprit? Almost certainly higher content and acquisition costs as JioStar battles for eyeballs in India’s cutthroat streaming wars.

Still, profit after tax held up reasonably well at Rs 888 crore, down from Rs 1,322 crore in Q2 but demonstrating the business can actually make real money, a rarity in the streaming game where most players haemorrhage cash like a burst pipeline.

The nine-month picture tells a more compelling story. From April through December 2025, JioStar notched up Rs 26,464 crore in gross revenues with Rs 4,058 crore in EBITDA, a respectable 17.9 per cent margin across the period. That’s a massive leap from the Rs 11,032 crore and Rs 774 crore EBITDA (8.1 per cent margin) generated in its first partial quarter of operations last year. Profit after tax for the nine months hit Rs 2,791 crore versus a mere Rs 229 crore in the base period.

The real story, though, is in the eyeballs. JioHotstar averaged 450 million monthly active users roughly matching the frenzy of an IPL quarter despite cricket’s marquee league being off-season. When India’s women cricketers clinched their first World Cup, 99 million viewers tuned in digitally. That’s IPL-sized numbers for women’s sport, which is rather extraordinary.

The platform’s entertainment content hit record engagement levels, propelled by Bigg Boss across multiple languages and a steady stream of blockbuster series. The network’s television arm wasn’t slouching either, capturing a whopping 34.6 per cent viewership share, nearly as much as the next three biggest networks combined.

Cricket remains the cash cow. India’s tour of Australia pulled 142 million viewers on JioHotstar alone, whilst South Africa’s tour became 2025’s biggest bilateral series with 187 million digital viewers. Even the Premier League and Pro Kabaddi League delivered strong numbers, with kabaddi cementing its position as India’s second most-watched sport after cricket.

The platform also proved its mettle in the AI game. Mahabharat: Ek Dharmayudh, the platform’s first AI-led show, saw “exceptionally strong traction” and robust multi-language adoption though one suspects the epic tale’s 5,000-year-old plot might have helped a bit.

Financially, JioStar’s trajectory is impressive even if the margins are sliding. The business is clearly in investment mode: depreciation hit Rs 343 crore in Q3 (up from Rs 323 crore in Q2), whilst finance costs remain modest at Rs 62 crore. For a business that only began consolidated operations in mid-March 2025, churning out nearly Rs 2,800 crore in nine-month profits whilst building a 450 million user base is nothing to sneeze at.

The real question now is whether JioStar can maintain this momentum when the IPL circus rolls back into town whilst keeping costs under control. If history is any guide, the answer is a resounding howzat.