Despite JioCinema’s terrible streaming debut at the FIFA World Cup on Sunday, with a huge number of football fans raving on social media, it has become the top-ranked free app on Google Play and the Apple App Store in India. Both app marketplaces provide a dynamic ranking of apps based on their real-time downloads and engagement. (In India, the top 10 charts are usually dominated by social media and messaging apps.)
Viacom18-owned JioCinema, which is streaming the showpiece football event for free, has been accused of showing broken links, buffering after every 30 seconds, and being unable to provide a seamless streaming experience to fans during the opening ceremony and Qatar and There was criticism for the first game between Qatar. Ecuador. Twitter was flooded with memes and complaints. Some even urged JioCinema to hire technical experts from its rival Hotstar.
Later apologizing to the fans, JioCinema said, “We are constantly working to give you a great experience. Please upgrade your app to the latest version to enjoy #FIFAWorldCupQatar2022. Apologies for any inconvenience.”
Earlier in October, Reliance-owned Viacom18 announced that JioCinema, and not Voot (its paid OTT platform), will live-stream all matches and curate non-live content around the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022. will offer. It certainly came. As a surprise to many users, who had renewed their Voot Select subscription to watch the FIFA World Cup.
Voot, incidentally, is the official streamer for several sporting events including La Liga, NBA, ATP Masters 1000, IIHF World Championships, and more. With Viacom18 now the official owner of the digital rights of IPL, Voot could be a possible streamer for the cricket event to be held in March 2023.
Interestingly, not only JioCinema, but Amazon Prime Video has also climbed the app charts. It is currently placed at number two in terms of engagement for download and streaming of the ongoing cricket series between India and New Zealand.
This is the first time that two OTT apps have topped the App Store in India.
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