Excited to offer advertisers amazing opportunities on Amazon MX Player: Karan Bedi

Days after Amazon officially announced its acquisition of MX Player, Karan Bedi, the former head of the streaming service, took to LinkedIn to express enthusiasm, stating, “We are excited to offer our advertiser partners amazing new opportunities to reach out to this wide and diverse audience.”

“Very happy and excited to announce the merger of MX Player and Amazon miniTV, the new Amazon MX Player! This is an exciting new chapter in the free entertainment space in India. By joining forces, we will be able to delight millions of viewers, by offering high-quality entertainment and streaming experiences, for free! We are also excited to offer our advertiser partners amazing new opportunities to reach out to this wide and diverse audience. I look forward to working with Girish Prabhu, Aruna Daryanani, Vijay Iyer, Amogh Dusad, Amit Agrawal, Vinay Kaushik and the team and delivering even more shows, movies and more in the weeks ahead, stay tuned”, Bedi wrote in a post on October 10. 

 https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7249880619457933312/ 

On Monday, October 7, ecommerce major Amazon finally confirmed that it has acquired “select assets of MX Player” and intends to merge it with its existing service, Amazon miniTV, to form a single entity – Amazon MX Player. 

After the merger, Bedi has been entrusted with leading the new entity Amazon MX Player. 

“This strategic consolidation brings together two of India's most popular free ad-supported video-on-demand (AVOD) services under a unified brand,” the company said in a statement. 

With the launch of the new app, Amazon has become one of the largest free streaming services in India. The US giant claims, “In September, over 250 million unique users enjoyed access to thousands of original shows, popular movies and international shows dubbed in local languages on the combined service.”

While the size of the deal was not immediately clear, sources said it could be in the range of $30-40 million, about ¼ of the value on which Times Internet Limited had purchased MX Player in 2018. 

Amazon has said that the merger will bring together the vast reach of MX Player, with the advertising tech that leverages Amazon’s billions of customer signals. 

Amazon has also stated that it 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.

Notably, it was March 20, 2023, when e4m was first to report that Amazon was eyeing to acquire MX Player, one of the largest OTT platforms in India, to expand its entertainment business in one of largest consumer markets in the world. 

MX Player and Amazon never confirmed this development then. The deal didn’t materialize after several rounds of talks and negotiations. 

The discussions were revived again in May this year. e4m reported again on May 29 about the talks which were at a crucial juncture then. Both the parties never confirmed it.