‘Amazon MX Player’ was introduced by Amazon on 7 September 2024 after it announced that it had taken over the free streaming OTT platform MX Player and combined it with its video streaming service, miniTV. Amazon kept the acquisition’s valuation a secret. A wider audience will be able to access premium-free content thanks to the combination.
Recently, Amazon acquired certain assets of MX Player, which includes the MX Player app, a prominent free streaming OTT service in India. According to Amazon’s official statement, with this acquisition, it is combining two of the most well-liked free AVOD (or ad-supported video on demand) services in India, MX Player, and Amazon miniTV, into a single service, Amazon MX Player. It further stated that over 250 million distinct users of the combined service in September had access to thousands of original series, well-known films, and foreign series dubbed in regional tongues.
The service may be accessed via Prime Video, Fire TV, the Amazon.in Shopping apps, mobile apps, and connected TVs.
How This Integration Will Be Done?
Users won’t need to update or reinstall the applications for Amazon miniTV and MX Player to seamlessly integrate with Amazon MX Player.
Amazon will continue to provide the service for free while providing higher-quality entertainment and streaming experiences more quickly than the firm could have done on its own. According to Karan Bedi, Head of Amazon MX Player, “This merger will mean great things for Amazon’s viewers, advertisers, and content partners and will let the firm bring MX Player to even more people in India.”
Amazon Will Keep Funding Original Content Production
The online retailer has pledged to continue funding original programming and bringing back beloved series for the new platform.
It stated that this will present chances for advertising to strengthen their bond with viewers. With the acquisition and merger, Amazon has significantly increased its presence in the Indian streaming industry, which also includes Prime Video, its paid service.
“We are combining the enormous reach of MX Player with the advertising technology that takes advantage of Amazon’s billions of consumer signals today,” said Girish Prabhu, head of Amazon Advertising India, highlighting the strategic benefits of this merger. It’s about giving all brands—not just those that sell on Amazon—the ability to connect with and engage a sizable and engaged audience in India with appropriate advertising.
About MX Player
Thousands of hours of premium, exclusive, and original material from top producers and publishers are available on the MX Player video streaming app. The portal prioritizes original content that is exclusively created, with a focus on superior Hindi and regional languages. The spectrum of languages encompasses Malayalam, Tamil, Bengali, Punjabi, Bhojpuri, and Kannada. Customers will have access to more than 20 original series and more than 50,000 hours of multilingual Premium Content on MX Player.
In 2021, Data AI company data.ai came out with an interesting report. As per the report, around the world, people spend around 38 hours per month watching videos on mobile apps. The trend is similar in India. Ormax Media’s report published in 2021 shows that there are 353 million OTT users in India, of which there are 96 million active paid subscriptions. There are about 40 OTT service providers in the country today, and among them, one of the most popular ones is MX player.
With about 280 Million Monthly Active Users Worldwide, MX Player has established itself as a top player in the OTT segment. Here is more on the MX player Success Story.
Indian Video Streaming platform MX player is a one-stop entertainment junction, where users can stream web series, TV shows, Movies, Music, Games, News, and more. The platform contains video content across all genres, and in various Indian regional languages, other than Hindi and English.
MX Player was developed by South Korean Developer J2 interactive in 2011. During its launch, MX Player was just a video player, that could play video files of different formats stored locally on a phone. The app was designed to play videos smoothly even on inexpensive Android smartphones, which is the reason it gained popularity in developing countries including India. Indeed India was MX Player’s largest market. This is the reason why India’s leading digital products company Times Internet acquired MX player for $140 Million in 2018.
In 2019, Times Internet relaunched MX player as a video streaming platform. As for today, MX player lets its users play offline video, stream videos online, and also stream music via Ganna (Times Internet’s music streaming service). Besides producing original shows in Hindi and other regional languages, MX player has tied up with various national and international studios like Goldmine, Hungama, Shemaroo, Paramount pictures, etc for sourcing content.
Launched initially just in India, MX player extended its OTT services internationally to countries like the USA, UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal in 2020.
MX Player was created by South Korea-based company J2 Interactive, which later was acquired by Times Internet in 2018. Since the acquisition, Karan Bedi has been operating as the CEO of MX player. Karan was previously the COO of EROS Digital which is yet another popular OTT platform of India. A Stanford University grad Karan Bedi has founded several other startups. In 2012, he founded edtech startup Tutorific, which he exited in 2014. He is also the co-founder of ContentFlow Technologies a company focused on the creation of education and infotainment-related content.
MX Player – Mission & Vision
As per CEO Karan Bedi, MX player’s vision is to be one of the world’s largest entertainment platforms and serve its users across their online entertainment needs, over and above just video streaming. In line with this vision, MX player has introduced music streaming. In February 2020, MX Player also launched games.
MX Player is an advertisement-based video-on-demand platform. Though there is an MX Player pro app that lets users enjoy the content without ads, the main source of revenue for MX players is advertisements. The company is looking forward to new ways of monetization in near future.
MX Player – Growth & Revenue
MX player had a wide base of customers in India even when the platform was owned by J2 Interactive. Post takeover of the app by Times Internet, and the re-launch of MX Player as a video streaming platform, it has attracted even more users. As per reports, MX Player’s Monthly Active Users grew by more than 14 % within 18 months of its acquisition by Times Internet.
As per the CII-BCG report in 2021, MX Player has over 280 Million Monthly Active Users Worldwide. The app has approximately 175 monthly active users in India. As per recent reports by App Annie, a research firm based in San Francisco, MX Player is the 2nd most downloaded app in India. The app has also gained popularity in Indonesia and Russia. As per the said report, MX player has reserved its place among the top 10 most downloaded apps worldwide. In 2019, MX Player was named India’s Top Streaming App by App Annie. As reported in 2021, MX Player registered more than 1 billion Downloads in Google Play.
The data relating to the exact revenue of MX Player is not revealed. But, in the Financial Year Ending March 2020, MX Player’s parent company Times Internet’s revenue grew by 24% to reach Rs 1,625 crore, and a sizeable chunk of this revenue comes from MX Player.
It is an Indian OTT platform and a joint venture between Star India and the Walt Disney Company.
Amazon Prime Video
It is an American subscription-based OTT platform. Amazon Prime Video is available both as a part of Amazon’s Prime subscription or as a standalone service.
Netflix
American Subscription based streaming service provider Netflix is one of the most popular OTT platforms worldwide.
MX Player is working towards growing as the one stop platform to fulfill all the online entertainment needs of its users. In the bid to grow, the platform is introducing new original content across various Indian Regional languages. MX Player has also introduced ‘MX Vdesi’ in the platform. Under the MX Vdesi segment comes various international shows dubbed in various regional languages.
MX Player – FAQs
Is MX Player a Free App?
Yes, MX Player is free for users. Though, there is an ad-free version of the app that is available for a small fee.
What is the Business Model of MX Player?
MX Player runs on a Freemium Model. The content is free to watch for the users. However, users can buy a subscription for an ad-free experience. Also, subscribers get early access to new releases on MX Player
Devashish Shrivastava
