In yet another interesting development related to the imminent launch of Disney+ in Malaysia, a new pricing for our market has appeared on the Disney+ Hotstar app. However, the pricing is quite different from what we have seen before.
Before this, the Disney+ Hotstar app stated that the pricing for the service in Malaysia is RM 89.90 per year. This time around, it said RM 54.90 for three months but on another hand, the My Account section of the app says RM 54.90 per month which have just made things rather confusing:
We discovered its pricing using the same method that we utilised to obtain the annual fee last month which involved loading Indonesian data for the app via VPN before switching the connection back to Malaysia. The only difference this time around is that we utilised a newer variant of the app with version number 11.5.3.
The app was sideloaded into a Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra because the Disney+ Hotstar app is still not available in Malaysia via Google Play. Based on what we have seen here, we don’t think that this is the actual pricing for Disney+ Hotstar in Malaysia, just like how we expressed our doubts over the annual pricing in our report last month.
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On a related note, The Edge today reported that Disney+ Hotstar rollout in Malaysia may involve Astro and TM. Whispers and rumours of this partnership has been going on within the industry for quite awhile now, although there is no plausible and concrete detail on the possible partnership.
That being said, Astro for quite some time has spoken about its plan to form partnerships with various streaming platforms similar to what it has done with HBO and iQIYI. A recent report by ContentAsia also said that the pay-TV operator is planning to reveal details regarding its new streaming service which is rumoured to be called Sooka this month.
Not to forget, Disney has also confirmed its plan to shut down a majority of its channels in Southeast Asia and many of them are being offered by Astro as well as TM’s unifi TV right now. It seems quite possible that roping them in for the Disney+ Hotstar rollout in Malaysia could help maintain their long-standing relationship.
Well, let’s hope that our curiosity will be answered by the related parties in a timely manner. As the URL for Disney+ has since been redirected to Disney+ Hotstar for Malaysian users, the answer may come very soon.
