MX Player is an OTT app that is said to be the largest online entertainment platform and it belongs to Times Internet, part of the Times of India group. Paytm and the Chinese major Tencent are reportedly looking to invest in MX Player and the size of the investment is reported to be $125 million and MX Player will allot them equity against this amount. The majority stake in the entity will however remain with the promoter group according to PTI report.
MX Player came into the Times Internet fold around the same time last year and early this year, the company went to town with a massive promotion campaign offering free download of the app. The content on the app ranges from drama to reality shows to other genre, all free to watch. There will however be ads in different programmes.
The development on the investment by Tencent and Paytm has not been officially confirmed by any of the parties involved but the sources appear sure of their report. While Tencent has been making some synergistic investments in startups in the internet space, the interest shown by Paytm is being attributed to its desire to offer more broad-based content to its customers, especially to take on rivals like Amazon which has its Prime Video offering. Ultimately, it all boils down to customer engagement and companies keep wooing the last man on the street with an internet connection to come on board and stay connected.
The market for online streaming and OTT entertainment is already crowded with players like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hotstar, Voot, YouTube and so on. MX Player says in has 50,000 hours of content and is able to offer in 10 different languages, English, Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam.
With the flurry of 6 inch+ display smartphones being released all over and data prices falling drastically, OTT could be the next best thing in the market.