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Zee5 has announced that the FIFA World Cup 2026 became India’s most-watched OTT content during the week of July 13 -19, with around 15 million viewers, according to the latest Ormax StreamView rankings.
The platform said the tournament attracted viewers across the country despite late-night match timings. Nearly 40 percent of peak concurrent viewership came from matches played between midnight and 4 a.m., showing that Indian football fans stayed up to watch the games live.
According to a Zee5 press release today,the FIFA World Cup also delivered a major boost to Zee5’s platform. Between June 1 and July 19, watch time increased by 79 percent, while daily app installs and new subscriptions rose by 55 percent, making it one of Zee5’s biggest live sports events to date.
The tournament saw strong viewership from both metro cities and smaller towns. Tier-2 cities contributed more than 45 percent of total watch time, while over half of all match viewing took place on connected TVs and other large-screen devices.
Football fans also watched the tournament in multiple languages. While English remained the most-watched language, Hindi, Malayalam and Bengali streams also recorded strong viewership. West Bengal emerged as the biggest football market on the platform, followed by Maharashtra, Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Delhi.
The tournament also helped increase engagement across its entertainment library. More than two-thirds of FIFA World Cup subscribers later watched movies on the platform, while nearly half explored Zee5’s original series.
Commenting on the achievement, Bavesh Janavlekar, Chief Business Officer, Unite8 Sports, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd., said the response proves football is becoming a mainstream sport in India. He added that Zee5 will continue investing in football and other sporting events through its long-term partnership with FIFA, which runs until 2034.
The platform recently expanded its multilingual entertainment slate across seven Indian languages and said it will continue combining live sports with original entertainment to attract a wider audience.
