Tencent which is a Chinese technology company is leading a funding round worth $110 million which is about INR 780 crore in MX Player which values around 4500 million. This is the first external acquisition of funds by the video-streaming platform.
This development will increase the competition in the domestic market orOTT market which has been growing at a rapid pace due to the availability of cheap data provided by Reliance Jio.

This is the second

instance where Tencent has funded a Times Internet Property. In February last year, it leads a $115 million funding round in Gaana which is a music streaming service. MX Player is a part of Times Internet which was owned by the Chinese mobile games firm Zenjoy was acquired by Times Internet for an estimated INR 1,000 crore. Zenjoy founder, Kai Xia who is on the board of MX Player had bought out the company in 2016 from a South Korean Founder.
The fresh investment will be used by MX Player to strengthen its content portfolio as well as developing original programming, for expansion of its entertainment genre and also for hiring fresh talents into the organization.

Tencent for long has been trying to expand its video streaming platform Tencent Video to other parts of the world and has recently entered the market in Thailand. By acquiring a stake in MX player, Tencent will gain a foothold in the burgeoning Indian OTT market. The company has turned out to be a major investor in India, that has funded Ola, ed-tech startup Byju’s and also domestic e-commerce company Flipkart, which has now been acquired by Walmart. It has also invested in business-to-business companies such as Udaan and OkCredit.