Sidharth Shakdher, who served as the executive vice president and chief marketing officer at Disney+ Hotstar has stepped down from his position. During his stint, he led the marketing, growth and direct-to-consumer business for Disney+ Hotstar.
Shakdher started his career with Samsung and went on to be a part of companies like Canon, HP, Xerox, Reckitt Benckiser and Amazon.
His innings with Disney+ Hotstar began as senior vice president and growth head.
Disney+ Hotstar has been having a rough time in India. The streamer has seen the biggest decline in its subscriber base since its launch. But Disney boss Bob Iger remains optimistic on the platform’s prospects in India, saying Disney “would like to stay”. “We’re looking in an open minded way. We like being in business in India, we’d love to be able to strengthen our hand. I can’t at this point predict where that will end up,” Iger told CNBC in response to a pointed question on whether he plans to sell Disney’s Hotstar assets in India.
The latest quarterly results from Disney show a 24 percent decline in subscribers for Disney+ Hotstar in India, with memberships for the platform in India at 40.4 million compared to 52.9 million in the previous quarter. This amounts to a decline of 12.5 million users in a single quarter.
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