Sony's Crunchyroll slashes price of anime-streaming service in India

Image source: Cruncyroll

Sony has slashed the price of its anime-focused streaming service Crunchyroll in India and plans to expand the library as well as introduce Hindi-dubbed content, as the company looks to shore up its presence in the country.

The change was part of its plan to reduce prices in nearly 100 countries and territories and customers would be charged in local currency versus US dollar prices, the service said on July 18.

"There is a massive appetite for anime in India with a growing number of fans who are craving more of what they love," Crunchyroll president Rahul Purini said in a statement.

Crunchyroll's Fan subscription, which offers ad-free viewing along with access to its library and new episodes one hour after release in Japan, has been reduced to Rs 79 from $7.99 (around Rs 638 at current exchange rate). The Mega Fan membership, which also provides offline viewing and support for four concurrent screens, will be available at Rs 99 a month down from $9.99 (around Rs 800).

The company said this cut in price would create consistency across Crunchyroll memberships across channels, including web, mobile, and living room devices.

While Crunchyroll has been available in India for quite a while, its library of anime content is limited as compared to other markets. The company now plans to introduce more local language dubbed content.

On July 18, the company announced that it has made two of its popular titles—My Dress Up Darling and Ranking of Kings—available in Hindi with more titles in the pipeline. The niche streaming service claims to offer nearly 5,500 episodes of anime, with 1,000 hours dubbed in English to Indian consumers. Overall, the service has over 1,000 titles and 30,000 episodes.

Sony Pictures Entertainment closed Crunchyroll acquisition for $1.175 billion in August 2021 after first announcing the deal in December 2020. The Japanese conglomerate merged its anime streaming service Funimation (acquired in 2019) with Crunchyroll in March 2022.

Crunchyroll LLC operates as an independent joint venture between US-based Sony Pictures Entertainment and Japan's Aniplex, a subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) Inc, both subsidiaries of Tokyo-based Sony Group Corporation. It claimed to have five million paid subscribers and 120 million registered users across more than 200 countries as of August last year.

It competes with streaming giant Netflix that has been ramping up its anime catalogue in recent years, as the service focuses on Asia for future growth. It announced plans to launch 40 new anime titles in March 2021 and also signed its first studio deal with a Japanese feature animation studio called Studio Colorido in April 2022.