Amazon to buy MX Player from Times Internet

livemint.com:

Mint. The deal had fallen through last time due to a valuation mismatch after Amazon, the US multinational with interests across e-commerce, streaming, cloud computing to online advertising, conducted a due diligence, a process of audit and verification of a potential target company to confirm financial information and all other relevant facts—for the OTT service. Last time, Times Internet had asked for over $100 million for MX Player, while Amazon’s internal team had valued it at around ₹500 crore ($60 million).

The value, one of the persons said, has gone down further. “The two parties have resumed talks and are close to a deal. The valuation has gone down because MX Player is in bad shape.

However, the company, which has over ₹2,500 crore in debt, will have to settle it on its own and Amazon will not take it on its books," said the person. Queries sent to Amazon and MX Player CEO Karan Bedi remained unanswered till press time. Amazon owns a paid subscriber video-on-demand (SVoD) service, Prime Video, as well as an ad-supported OTT service Amazon miniTV in India.

Amazon launched miniTV in May 2021 as a free service available within the Amazon shopping app for android phone users, which was later extended to iPhone users as well. Prime Video targets the higher SECs (socio-economic classes) and is bundled with the Prime subscription, which also gives users access to free shipping on eligible items and ad-free music apart from Prime Video content. However, for miniTV, there is no subscription required and it is targeted at the masses with smartphones and data connections.