Amazon will buy MX Player from Times Internet

The last time a deal fell through due to a valuation mismatch after Amazon, a multinational US company with interests in e-commerce, streaming, cloud computing and online advertising, conducted due diligence and audited and vetted the potential target company to confirmation of financial information and all other facts relevant to the OTT service.

Times Internet asked for more than $100 million for MX Player, while Amazon’s internal team valued it at around ₹500 crore ($60 million). One person said the value had dropped even further.

“Both sides have resumed talks and are close to reaching an agreement. The valuation has dropped because MX Player is in poor condition. However, a company that has ended ₹The debt of Rs 2,500 crore will have to settle itself and Amazon will not include it in its books,” the person said.

Inquiries sent to Amazon and MX Player CEO Karan Bedi remained unanswered as of press time.

Amazon owns the paid video-on-demand (SVoD) service for Prime Video subscribers, as well as the ad-supported OTT service Amazon miniTV in India. Amazon launched miniTV in May 2021 as a free service available in the Amazon shopping app for Android phone users, which was later expanded to iPhone users as well.

Prime Video is aimed at upper socioeconomic classes and is paired with a Prime subscription, which gives users access to free shipping on eligible products and ad-free music in addition to Prime Video content.

However, miniTV does not require a subscription and is aimed at the masses with smartphones and data connections. The addition of MX Player will boost Amazon’s AVoD (video on demand for advertisers) business.

MX Player was originally developed by a South Korean app developer as a media player for downloaded videos. In 2018, Times Internet owned by Bennett Coleman & Co Ltd (BCCL) acquired MX Player for ₹1,000 crore (around $140 million then) to celebrate its entry into the video streaming market after several failed attempts, including BoxTV.

MX Player was later re-released as an ad-supported video streaming application. The biggest advantage of the player was that it was already present on the smartphones of over 100 million users and reached 50 million users per day. Today, MX Player has over 300 million users worldwide.

But the company, which recently raised about $111 million in a financing round led by Chinese internet giant Tencent, has been unable to generate enough cash to fund expansion for some time, and Times Internet has been selling off some of its businesses. In February last year, the company sold short-video platform MX Takatak to Temasek-backed ShareChat.

In May 2022, Times Internet sold Dineout to Swiggy in an equity deal and later in December sold lifestyle publications MensXP and iDiva and influencer marketing company Hypp to Mensa Brands.