Crunchyroll launched in India at ₹79/month with the world's cheapest anime subscription

In October 2022, Sony-owned Crunchyroll opened its first India office in Mumbai and hired a team to build an anime community in a market long dominated by piracy. The company co-sponsored all five Indian Comic Cons, hired Bollywood stars Tiger Shroff and Rashmika Mandanna as brand ambassadors, and planned to set up a second office in Hyderabad.

Crunchyroll priced Indian subscriptions at just ₹79 per month (about 94 cents) — one of the cheapest in the world — and dubbed over 80 shows into Hindi, Telugu, and Tamil. Dubbed titles drove more than 65% of total viewership in India. By mid-2024, the mobile app had 46,000 monthly active users, up from 29,000 in all of 2021. The company planned to produce anime based on Indian characters and themes, working with Japanese creators, and launched a Prime Video channel partnership to reach more subscribers.

46,000 monthly active users in India within two years; dubbed content drove 65% of viewership; plans for second India office in Hyderabad

India's anime market was projected to exceed $5 billion by 2032, making it one of the fastest-growing content markets globally

Piracy had long been the default for Indian anime fans due to expensive licensing and censorship, so ultra-low pricing removed the core barrier

Dubbing in local languages unlocked mass-market appeal that English-only subtitles could not reach

Partnering with Prime Video addressed subscription fatigue by reaching users already paying for a streaming service

When a market is dominated by piracy, the unlock is not enforcement but accessibility — ultra-low pricing, deep localization, and community-building turn pirates into paying subscribers.

By August 2024, Crunchyroll had around 800 anime titles available in India — far more than Netflix or Prime Video — and was planning to produce India-specific anime content with Japanese studios. Other competitors including JioCinema and Airtel's Sony Yay also began investing in anime content for the Indian market, validating Crunchyroll's thesis that the country was an untapped growth opportunity.