Amazon buys part of Times Internet’s video streaming service MX Player

E-commerce major Amazon has signed a definitive agreement to acquire part of video streaming service MX Player from Times Internet, as part of its efforts to make its services available in smaller cities and towns in India as well as some overseas markets.

The agreement, signed on Wednesday, values MX Player at a paltry amount of less than $100 million. The video streaming service had last raised capital at a valuation of $500 million, according to reports.

Amazon is not acquiring the entire assets of MX Player, but the deal opens way for several top executives of MX Player to move to Amazon.

Times Group has been looking to sell some of their digital properties for the past two years. A deal had to wait for lack of synergies between MX Player and the acquirer company. 

Singapore’s Tencent also has invested in Times internet.  

In MX Player, Amazon gets a distribution and marketing partner that can help make the e-commerce platform more popular and trustworthy to audiences, a source familiar with Amazon’s strategy told TechCrunch. 

MX Player is popular in the smaller cities and towns in India while Amazon’s e-commerce service mostly serves the urban consumer. 

Amazon will retain the MX Player brand name and will utilise it to broaden its video streaming services across India, especially to push its Prime subscription beyond the metro cities. 

At present, Reliance, which operates India’s largest retail chain, leads the video streaming service market after its merger with Disney’s India operations. The two entities together control 55 per cent of the video streaming services market in India, while MX Player has a 15 per cent market share and Netflix and Prime Video have 3 to 5 per cent share each in the market, according to UBS data.