This can be seen as the biggest deal in India’s online gaming sector as of yesterday : Walt Disney has acquired full stake in Indiagames at an estimated Rs. 390-400 Crore.
In 2006, UTV had purchased 51 percent stake in Indiagames while rest of the stake was held by Indiagames founder and promoter Vishal Gondal, Tom Online, Adobe and Cisco.
Back in July this year, UTV was bought by Walt Disney for Rs 200 Crores. Thus, Walt Disney were already holding 50.44 percent stake of Indiagames and this acquisition means that they’ve purchased rest of the shares. This deal follows Walt Disney’s announcement last month that they are planning to invest more in mobile markets of India and China.
Jay Rasulo, Senior Executive Vice President of Walt Disney commented on the growing market in India:
The amount of content that can be downloaded and interacted with even on a $50 mobile phone in the developing world is incredible and was a shock to us, and with 700 million cellphones in India alone and a million more being added every month, Disney will take advantage of the growing market for mobile content moving forward.
Indiagames were recently in news when they announced a tie up with Shahrukh Khan’s Red Chillies entertainment for the development of Ra.One social game. And they are one of Top 100 Gaming Studios worldwide which was prepared by Develop 100.
Our Take
The future belongs to mobile phones and tablets. The Indian government realised this and launched the cheapest tablet in the world so that students in the country (rural and urban) could get access to online content at a low price. Companies like SMSGyan have tried innovating by coming up with a SMS search engine platform as well. They have even provided a service where metro train passengers in Delhi can know the train fare and route. Already 1.58 Million tablets have been bought in the country, and the presence of a huge mobile subscriber base means that Walt Disney has chosen the right market.
The deal will be fruitful for Walt Disney as India is a fast growing market in terms of social gaming, and as far as Mr. Vishal Gondal is concerned – he’s got the moolah he deserved.
0 comments: