Amazon Collaborates MX Player with miniTV to expand ad-supported Streaming

Amazon has announced its purchase of select assets from Times internet-owned MX player, including the MX Player app, which will join together with its ad-supported video-on-demand service, Amazon miniTV, to create Amazon MX Player. 

On 29 March, a report said that the e-commerce giant had resumed talks to attain the cash-strapped video streaming platform almost a year after the initial deal fell through. 

Amazon owns Prime Video, a subscription-based video-on-demand service, and Amazon miniTV, an ad-supported OTT platform launched in May 2021. Prime Video caters to higher-paying audiences, offering bundled services including free shipping and free music, while miniTV targets small-town masses and is accessible on the Amazon shopping app for both Android phone users and iPhone users. The combination of MX Player is expected to boost Amazon’s advertiser video-on-demand business. 

“It’s about enabling all brands, not just the ones selling on Amazon, to reach and deliver relevant advertising to a very large and engaged base across India. It’s about directly measuring outcomes from the very top of the funnel to the very bottom,”  Girish Prabhu, head of Amazon advertising India, said in a statement.    

Amazon miniTV is known for originals such as Yeh Meri Family, Hustlers and Dehati Ladke, among many others. Amazon will continue to invest in originals and returning seasons of popular shows, which will help provide advertisers the opportunity to deepen their relationships with viewers, the company said in a statement. 

MX Player was initially developed by a South Korean app developer as a media player for downloaded videos. In 2018, Bennett Coleman & Co Ltd - owned Times Internet, acquired MX Player for Rs 1,000 crore, to mark its entry into video streaming, after a couple of attempts were failed, including BoxTV. MX Player was later relaunched as an ad-supported video streaming app.

However, the company, which last raised around $111 million in a funding round led by Chinese internet giant Tencent, has not been able to generate enough cash for a while to fund expansion and Times Internet has been selling off some of its businesses. In February last year, the company sold its short-video platform MX Takatak to Temasek-backed ShareChat. 

“We will offer high-quality entertainment and streaming experiences faster than we could have done independently, while continuing to keep the service free,” said Karan Bedi, head of Amazon MX Player said in a statement. “This merger will mean great things for our viewers, advertisers and content partners, and will let us bring MX Player to even more people in India.”