MUMBAI: Taking another step towards getting on over-the-top (OTT) bandwagon, Times Internet has acquired a majority stake in Seoul-based MX Player in an all-cash deal worth $200 million, according to a report by The Ken. With this investment, Times Internet will be able to launch its OTT video service, which is expected to make a debut in the next few months.

MX Player is among the very few Android video player applications that support multi-core decoding. The player is very popular in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Iran among other countries.

Times Internet is currently testing its OTT app on a different version of MX Player, MX Player Online 2018 (beta). All the operations of the OTT app will be headed by Karan Bedi, the former COO of Eros. In 2015, the company launched Box TV in its very first attempt to enter the OTT space. However, the platform was shut down later in the year.

It is believed that, from $340 million in 2017, India’s online video industry is going to touch $1.6 million in revenue by 2022. Since a couple of years, a lot of major startups have taken a slide in video streaming industry.

As per the mobile insights and data company AppAnnie, MX Player has been downloaded by 63.6 million Indian users on their Android smartphones so far. This includes 80 per cent low-end smartphones and 20 per cent high-end handsets.