Amazon to acquire some assets of streaming service MX Player

Amazon also operates a subscription-based streaming service called Prime Video that is bundled with its Prime subscription service.

Amazon has signed an agreement to acquire some assets from the Times Internet-owned streaming platform MX Player, the online tech giant said on June 6, signalling consolidation in India's increasingly competitive video streaming market.

“We are always looking for ways to introduce new products and services that help improve customers’ lives. We’re excited to continue to entertain India with the great local originals and exclusive content available across our Prime Video and miniTV services in India” an Amazon spokesperson said.

The transaction is however not yet complete, the company added.

Amazon has been in discussions to acquire MX Player, one of the prominent players in the country’s ad-supported streaming space, since early 2023. The company called off the deal around July 2023, but resumed talks again in recent months.

Sources told Moneycontrol the deal values MX Player at less than $100 million, a significant dip from $500 million valuation when it last raised $111 million financing in a round led by Chinese internet giant Tencent in 2019.

We have reached out to Times Internet for a comment and will update once we hear back.

The deal comes months after Walt Disney announced a joint venture with Reliance Industries in February, that combines the businesses of Viacom18 and Star India to create one of India's largest TV and digital streaming platforms.

Once the deal is completed, two of India’s largest streaming platforms - Disney+ Hotstar, which currently leads the country’s subscription-based video streaming market, and JioCinema, a prominent player in the ad-supported video streaming market - will have a single owner.

The combined entity will capture about 85 percent of India’s video-streaming audience, according to analysts at brokerage firm Bernstein.

The deal is expected to bolster Amazon’s streaming ambitions in India, a crucial market for its future expansion, due to the rising digital video consumption among consumers in the world’s second largest internet market.

Amazon currently operates a subscription-based streaming service called Prime Video that is bundled with its Amazon Prime subscription service, as well as a free ad-supported streaming service called miniTV.

Read: India key market to acquire the next 250 million subscribers, said Prime Video head

Amazon first introduced miniTV in May 2021, making it available within the company’s flagship shopping app starting with Android and later on iOS devices. In July 2023, Amazon launched a standalone Android app for miniTV.

The service allows consumers to watch short films, web series and television shows across multiple languages and genres. People spend about 45 minutes per session watching content, the company said in December 2023.

miniTV is also a key part of Amazon’s strategy to boost its digital advertising revenues in the country.

The company said that marquee brands such as Mamaearth, Realme, Nissan, Lenovo,and WhatsApp among others have either sponsored shows on miniTV, done brand integrations within shows or purchased advertising inventory.

The asset purchase of MX Player, which has deep penetration in the country’s smaller cities and towns, will also likely help with Amazon’s rural push at a time when it is involved in an intensifying e-commerce battle against Walmart-owned Flipkart in the country.

MX Player was first developed by South Korea-based app publisher J2 Interactive as a local video playback app in 2011.

The app gained immense popularity among consumers since it supported a wide range of video formats on affordable smartphones, clocking over 500 million downloads by 2018.

Times Internet acquired MX Player for Rs 1,000 crore ($140 million) in 2018. This acquisition was part of the company’s efforts to re-enter the country’s video-streaming space after an earlier failed attempt with BoxTV that shut down in 2016.

The company launched a short video app MX Takatak in July 2020, joining a slew of short video apps that looked to fill the void left by the suspension of Bytedance-owned TikTok.

Sharechat, which owns the short video app Moj, acquired MX Takatak for $600 million in February 2022. The app has since been rebranded as Moj Lite+.