New Delhi: Amazon has agreed to acquire MX Player, a video streaming service in India, from Times Internet, a giant media company there. This move helps Amazon get more popular in smaller cities and towns across India. The deal is worth less than $100 million.
While Amazon is buying some parts of MX Player, it’s not buying the whole company. MX Player has backers like Tencent. This deal took almost two years to finalize. Times Internet has been selling off many digital properties lately.
Amazon thinks MX Player can help them reach more people, especially in smaller Indian towns. MX Player is already popular in those places. Amazon plans to keep the MX Player name.
Buying MX Player is part of Amazon’s plan to grow its video streaming services in India beyond big cities. They offer cheap subscriptions and work with local telecom companies to reach more people. Apart from Prime Video, Amazon also launched a free video streaming service in India in 2021.
Reliance and Disney are big players in India’s video streaming market. MX Player also has a big share. Netflix and Prime Video have smaller shares. Times Internet bought MX Player in 2018 for $140 million and turned it into a full-fledged video streaming platform.
MX Player’s special features, like supporting different video formats, make it popular in India. After TikTok got banned in 2020, MX Player launched its own short-video app called MX TakaTak. Times Internet later sold MX TakaTak to ShareChat for over $650 million.
