The Crunchyroll acquisition will offer Sony unlimited access to the U.S. animation-streaming service’s 70 million members worldwide, allowing the Japanese conglomerate to compete better with Netflix and other sites.
Sony Corporation is in final talks with AT&T to acquire the U.S. animation-streaming service Crunchyroll. The deal is worth more than 100 billion yen. The acquisition would give Sony Corporation unlimited access to Crunchyroll’s 70 million members from across the world. It would also allow CrunchyRoll to compete at par with Netflix and other streaming platforms.
Sony Acquires Crunchyroll
AT&TA is keen to finalize Crunchyroll acquisition by Sony
Sony, which recently obtained the exclusive rights to negotiate for Crunchyroll, also hopes to leverage the new platform to distribute its entertainment content, like films and music.
Sony earlier bought Funimation Productions Ltd, an animation distributor organization for about $143 million in 2017. Funimation Productions have around one million paying subscribers. Sony is upgrading its gaming and entertainment businesses under Chief Executive Kenichiro Yoshida’s strategy to increase stupendous recurring revenue streams. The corporation earlier this week raised its annual profit outlook, with its gaming business capturing “nesting” demand and Japanese animated film “Demon Slayer,” which is co-distributed by Sony’s music unit.
About Crunchyroll
Crunchyroll, Inc. is an American entertainment company that deals primarily in streaming anime, manga, and dorama. It was founded in 2006 by a group of University of California, Berkeley graduates. The organization streams content to around 70 million registered users worldwide. Crunchyroll has its offices spread across San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chișinău, and Tokyo, and is a member of the Association of Japanese Animations (AJA).
Crunchyroll offers more than 1,000 anime shows, 200+ East Asian dramas, and 50 manga titles as Crunchyroll Manga. It passed the one million paid subscribers to mark in February 2017. As of 2020, it has over 3 million paid subscribers.