Xiaomi Creates Zest in Indian Digital Market by Investing $25Mn in Hungama

By siliconindia | Thursday, 07 April 2016, 04:36 Hrs

BENGALURU: Chinese smartphone giant Xiaomi has in its first ever business venture in India has invested in Hungama, an Indian Digital Media Entertainment Company on the internet. The $25Mn (Rs170 crore) business deal has grabbed a lot of eyeballs and has set a trend by pulling such a huge number in a debut investment. .Xiaomi has plans to make major investment in Hungama as compared to its existing investors Intel Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners and Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, however their part of investment in this Mumbai-based company is not yet disclosed.

"Xiaomi is leading an investment round in Hungama with existing investors, at the same time we're partnering for video on demand service in India and integrating it into our platform,"says Hugo Barra, International Operations Head, Xiaomi.

The agreement clarifies Xiaomi’s stand on integrating Hungama’s video on demand service with the Mi platform present in its smartphones and TVs, where it is to be seen when the company launches it’s TV services in India. The integration timeline is not yet disclosed, but however it is brought into notice that post integration, the platform will launch some part of free and few paid content which will be a part of the monetization strategy. Video on demand is a rapidly developing services and the Chinese maker Xiaomi has a target in mind to come up with a similar ecosystem in India to become a key driver for users to connect with internet.

Xiaomi has recently introduced two of its much talked about smartphones in India this year; that also includes the flagship Mi 5 model which was released last week. Even though the company has not fared well to be among the competition of top five models in the handset sales business in India, but Xiaomi has made sure to be first of its kind company to have invested in an Indian firm.

"With 4G taking off, starting this year, video on demand is unlocked because the experience gets huge upgrade when you switch from 3G to 4G," says Barra.

Neeraj Roy, Founder and CEO, Hungama explains this foreign investment will upgrade the company's movie and television services by adding 65 million monthly active consumers across platforms.