Walt Disney Co and Reliance Industries Ltd have signed a binding pact to merge their media operations in India, people familiar with the matter said, as the US entertainment giant recasts its strategy amid intense competition in the world’s most-populous country.
The media unit of Reliance, controlled by billionaire Mukesh Ambani, and its affiliates are expected to own at least 61 percent in the merged entity, with Disney holding the rest, the people said.
The latest milestone and other details are likely to be announced early this week, the people said.
Photo: Reuters
The stake split between the partners might change, depending on how Disney’s other local assets are factored in by the time the deal is closed, the people said.
Disney owns a minority stake in broadcast service provider, Tata Play Ltd, which Reliance might consider acquiring, local news reports said.
Disney has been grappling with challenges in India, such as retaining subscribers and securing coveted media assets, while Reliance has cornered a larger slice of the local media and entertainment businesses in recent years.
Together, they would make a formidable media behemoth in one of the world’s fastest-growing entertainment markets.
Ambani’s unit had outbid Disney in 2022 to win the streaming rights for the Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket tournament and in April last year bagged a multiyear pact to broadcast Warner Bros Discovery Inc’s HBO shows, which were earlier with Disney.
While Disney’s streaming service, Disney+ Hotstar, managed to draw record viewers for the Cricket World Cup in October and November last year, it showed the matches for free in the cricket-crazy nation — a move aimed at clawing back subscribers even if it meant sacrificing revenue.
Reliance had streamed IPL matches earlier last year without any charge, drawing viewers in hordes.
This transaction is part of the larger consolidation efforts in the Indian media and entertainment space. Sony Group Corp planned to merge its local unit with Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd until differences cropped up on who would lead the newly merged media giant that ultimately gutted the deal last month.
Nvidia Corp’s demand for advanced packaging from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) remains strong though the kind of technology it needs is changing, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, after he was asked whether the company was cutting orders. Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip, Blackwell, consists of multiple chips glued together using a complex chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology offered by TSMC, Nvidia’s main contract chipmaker. “As we move into Blackwell, we will use largely CoWoS-L. Of course, we’re still manufacturing Hopper, and Hopper will use CowoS-S. We will also transition the CoWoS-S capacity to CoWos-L,” Huang said
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) is expected to miss the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, bucking a trend among high-profile US technology leaders. Huang is visiting East Asia this week, as he typically does around the time of the Lunar New Year, a person familiar with the situation said. He has never previously attended a US presidential inauguration, said the person, who asked not to be identified, because the plans have not been announced. That makes Nvidia an exception among the most valuable technology companies, most of which are sending cofounders or CEOs to the event. That includes
TARIFF TRADE-OFF: Machinery exports to China dropped after Beijing ended its tariff reductions in June, while potential new tariffs fueled ‘front-loaded’ orders to the US The nation’s machinery exports to the US amounted to US$7.19 billion last year, surpassing the US$6.86 billion to China to become the largest export destination for the local machinery industry, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械公會) said in a report on Jan. 10. It came as some manufacturers brought forward or “front-loaded” US-bound shipments as required by customers ahead of potential tariffs imposed by the new US administration, the association said. During his campaign, US president-elect Donald Trump threatened tariffs of as high as 60 percent on Chinese goods and 10 percent to 20 percent on imports from other countries.
INDUSTRY LEADER: TSMC aims to continue outperforming the industry’s growth and makes 2025 another strong growth year, chairman and CEO C.C. Wei says Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday said it aims to grow revenue by about 25 percent this year, driven by robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips. That means TSMC would continue to outpace the foundry industry’s 10 percent annual growth this year based on the chipmaker’s estimate. The chipmaker expects revenue from AI-related chips to double this year, extending a three-fold increase last year. The growth would quicken over the next five years at a compound annual growth rate of 45 percent, fueled by strong demand for the high-performance computing
RSS