To increase mobile presence in India.
By The American Bazaar Staff
NEW DELHI: Eros International, one of India’s leading film distribution companies, has acquired a controlling stake in Universal Power Systems Private Limited (UPS), a leading mobile services company.
Under the terms of the deal, UPS and its Techzone brand name will now fall under the purview of Eros International. The deal is seen by many in the industry as a sign that Eros is going to expand its mobile presence, a bold move for a company that already has a rather significant mobile and online presence to begin with.
Techzone is based in Chennai, and is described as a mobile Value Added Services (mVAS) firm. Eros International, which is the first major Indian entertainment company to be traded publically on the New York Stock Exchange, is based in Mumbai, India’s entertainment and commercial capital.
Eros already has its own content streaming service, entitled Eros Now, and is leading the Indian movie industry in terms of marrying technology with both film marketing and film production. Just last month, the company released India’s first-ever motion-capture film, Kochadaiiyaan, which has been doing robust business within the subcontinent.
Founded in 1999, Techzone is a large mobile aggregator, which also develops and distributes entertainment content for both Hollywood and Bollywood-centric audiences. Techzone’s formidable mobile technologies will likely be utilized for Eros Now, to optimize the service across everything from laptops to tablets, and even smartphones – much the same way that Netflix’s Instant Watch service currently operates.
Techzone CEO and Manging Director, Jyoti Deshpande, told the Hollywood Reporter that her company gets average transaction traffic of around 25 million per month – these include SMS, WAP, and IVR transactions – and reaches around 870 million mobile subscribers currently. Those are astronomical numbers, and ones that any company would want to tap into.
Eros International’s film library contains over 2,000 titles, all of which could become instantly streamable to subscribers. Some of their most famous films include Sholay, 3 Idiots, Ra.One, and Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela.