MX Player's reach declined by 17% in first 15 months of TIL takeover

What does come to your mind when a name MX Player pop up?

A South Korean popular video player platform. A year after year many download knockoffs on Google play store. More than 500 million downloads. Over 40% of users from India. And $140 million acquisition by Times Internet in 2018. Right.

Well, if you thought that is all about it then you might need to keep reading ahead. As MX Player new owner had a different plan in mind. It soon started transitioning from video users to streaming users platform.

MX Player entered the space with a series of MX Originals Series to add premium original video streaming services to its platform, along with offline video streaming and music streaming on the app.

While the company reported having registered decent growth in past couple months this year, fifteen months since Times Internet take over it has witnessed a downfall in reach and market share by install, according to a Kalagato report.

MX Player, at the beginning of the last year, had close to 58% unique smartphone users (by reach) and 43% market share (by installs) in online video space which came down to 41% and 21.5% respectively by the end of March.

One of the reasons for MX Player downfall is attributed to its being started as a video platform. After Times Internet acquisition, it is now being converted into an OTT platform, where content is the differentiator.

Some attrition in the customer base is expected, but, MX Player’s reach has fallen dramatically as users switch to traditional OTT platforms, said Aman Kumar, the CBO of KalaGato.

Whereas its rival OTT platforms such as Hotstar, Zee5, Voot and Jio Tv witnessed a rise in reach by app install during the same period. In the same period, ZEE5 witnessed a significant rise in reach to 6% from less than 1% in January 2018. Jio TV also registered noticeable growth whereas Voot saw a downfall in the same period.

Hotstar, in the same period, saw unique users rise to 46% in March 2019 from 29% in January 2018.

However, MX Player, in February, with its five new web series launch claimed to foray into OTT gameplay. In the first month, it saw a slight increase in reach and market share. But again it slipped in March. Times Internet-owned platform claims to generate about two-thirds of its viewership from smaller towns.

Meanwhile, overseas OTT players Netflix, and Amazon Prime saw a significant rise in market share by install in the last 15 months.

In India, the OTT market is still at the nascent stage. Though it holds the potential to be among the top ten markets globally.

As per Ashocham-PwC joint study, Indian OTT market is expected to touch $823 million at CAGR of 22.6% by 2022.