MUMBAI: K Sera Sera(KSS) Digital Cinema Private Limited and United MediaWorks (UMW) joined forces to become the third largest digital cinema player in the country.
The two companies have decided to integrate their full operations and technology and use their combined energies to develop and consolidate their market position. Post the merger across content, technology and operations, the new venture will serve their existing 600 digital cinema theaters across the country. KSS’s Satish Panchariya will be the Chairman of the new company and UMW’s Ashish Bhandari will be the Managing Director.
To fuel their expansion plans, both the companies plan to invest INR 100 crores over the next two to three years. This investment will be used to build state-of-art and scalable digital cinema technology and on ground servicing, while assisting in digital content security and distribution of the films. Over the next 2 years, the joint venture is aiming to capture 25% market share with presence in 2000 screens across India.
As part of their growth strategy, the two companies aim at reaching out to advertisers, targeting both, national and regional players and offer them pan India reach. Both the companies are working together to build a common technology platform for content acquisition, content processing and field servicing. The new platform will not only provide cost effective solutions to both multiplexes and single screen theatres, but also offer advertisers a wide reach across the country for better ROIs. Additionally, the companies will mutually work towards delivering best quality services and reaching out to the untapped market segments of India. They intend to serve the Indian cinema industry with best products and services. The exisiting workforce will remain unaffected in both of the companies.
Speaking on the joint venture, United Mediaworks co-founder & joint managing director Ashish Bhandari said, “We are really excited to partner with K Sera Sera, as our goal has always been to support the growth of the Media and Entertainment industry. With this merger, we are aiming to expand our presence across India and create a benchmark for the entire industry in terms of technology and quality services. This collaboration is also an effort to revive and support the single screen theatres that face tough competition from the multiplexes in the industry.”
