Although Times Internet’s maiden OOT venture Box TV faced closure in 2016, it has decided to take yet another bet in the OTT segment. Times Internet, part of the media conglomerate Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd (BCCL), confirmed on Thursday that it has acquired South Korean video streaming platform MX Player. The acquisition deal is worth $144 Mn (INR 1000 Cr), making it the biggest acquisition deal for BCCL till date.
MX Player is one of South Korea’s largest video streaming platforms and also boosts formidable presence across India. It claims to have nearly 350 million subscribers in India and 500 million subscribers globally. Following the acquisition, MX Player will continue to operate as a separate company in India as well as China.
Times Internet’s latest acquisition will mark its comeback in the OTT space, after its first venture Box TV failed to rake the moolah. MX Player will compete with established players like Netflix, Hotstars and Amazon Prime. The company has already made it clear that its newly acquired platform will play premium and in-house contents to take on incumbent players.
According to a press statement, in the first year Mx Player will launch more than 20 original shows and over 50,000 hours of premium content across different languages.
Times Internet is clearly choosing to remain bullish on India’s OTT market as India’s internet users continues to grow at exponential rate. The availability of cheap data coupled with Reliance Jio effect has propelled India’s OTT market to promising heights, spawning out scores of players as they look to tap into this promising market.
Apart from Netflix, Hotstar and Amazon Prime, other formidable players in the OTT space are Voot (joint venture between Network18 & Viacom), Sony Corp’s SonyLiv, Zee Entertainment’s OZee and Balaji’s ALTBalaji.