Sony Acquires Crunchyroll Animes Streaming Service – IT Pro – News

AT&T sells Crunchyroll to Funimation Global Group, a joint venture of Sony Pictures Entertainment and Sony Music Entertainment Aniplex. Crunchyroll and Funimation are both services for streaming animes online.

Sony pays $ 1.18 billion, or 970 million euros, to AT&T for Crunchyroll. If the acquisition gets approval from the relevant regulatory authorities, Sony will get an animation service with 3 million subscribers, 50 million social media followers and 90 million registered users.

Crunchyroll was founded in the US in 2006 as a forum for anime and as a platform for uploading clips. In the years that followed, the company grew into a streaming platform with more than a thousand anime titles and thirty thousand episodes. In 2016 Crunchyroll reached a million subscribers.

In 2014, the company was owned by Otter Media, a joint venture of AT&T and The Chernin Group. AT&T is disposing of the company as part of its strategy to divest non-core business divisions in order to reduce its debt burden.

Funimation was established in 1994. In 2017, the company was owned by a joint venture between Sony Pictures Entertainment and Sony Music Entertainment. The service includes a range of 700 anime series, available on 15 platforms in 49 countries. The company also focuses on anime events and merchandise.

The acquisition gives Sony a firmer position in the popular anime streaming market. Netflix, among others, tries to conquer this market by investing in series.

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