India is the largest film market in the world by theatrical volume and one of the most operationally complex by language, OTT tier, and tax architecture. Output deals dominate the SVOD layer. Hindi catalogs report differently than Tamil catalogs. The Indian OTT landscape consolidated dramatically in February 2025 when Reliance and Disney completed the joint venture that merged JioCinema and Disney+ Hotstar into JioHotstar, now the dominant domestic SVOD/AVOD operator. The Indian TDS (Tax Deducted at Source) on royalties to non-resident rights holders runs at 10-15% depending on treaty status, recoverable only if statements carry the right attribution against the right PAN. For international distributors, India is the market where one country contains a dozen distinct distribution markets stacked on top of each other — and where royalty infrastructure determines whether the deal economics survive the year. Molten Cloud, the rights, royalties, and content management platform for film and television distribution, ingests every Indian platform on its own cadence, normalizes the per-stream and rev-share math, and produces a single statement with TDS attribution that survives a tax audit. This guide is the operating picture for international distributors entering India.
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