Zattoo swallows Magine TV Germany's end customer business
Zattoo, a streaming provider founded in Zurich, is acquiring a competitor's consumer business in Germany—thereby further expanding its market position internationally.
TV streaming provider Zattoo has acquired the B2C business of Magine TV Germany as of January 28, 2019. The company will discontinue its TV streaming service in Germany at the end of February. 150,000 active Magine users will receive a welcome offer from European market leader Zattoo: They can test Zattoo PREMIUM for two months free of charge.
Nick Brambring, CEO of Zattoo International: "Zattoo has always believed in the combination of strong TV content and modern distribution through streaming, enabling multi-screen and timeshift usage. Our mission is to build an excellent TV streaming platform to bring live and on-demand TV to more and more users. This both under our own brand and in partnerships. We regret that we are losing Magine as a partner in the development of a market for modern TV distribution in Germany. In return, we gain more users and can therefore invest even more in our product."
The cloud-based over-the-top service Magine TV was founded in Sweden in March 2013. It has been available to users in Germany since April 2014 and offers a high-quality range of all relevant free TV and many pay TV channels in HD in Germany. Magine TV has now decided to withdraw from the German TV streaming market with its retail business.
"Magine started as a provider of web TV for end customers, but for some time has been pursuing a strategy of being primarily a business-to-business provider," said Kamal Bherwani, Chairman of Magine. "Accordingly, we have now decided to stop focusing on multiple business models and instead focus on our B2B strategy. As a result, we are selling our B2C business to our renowned competitor and current partner Zattoo. We sincerely thank all Magine TV users for their loyalty. With Zattoo, our users are in good hands and will be able to stream high-quality TV with a variety of TV channels as usual." Magine will focus on the global B2B business with the video streaming platform provider MaginePro and offer comprehensive video streaming solutions for web platforms and content providers.
Zattoo is a Swiss company that offers a contemporary alternative to cable TV. Users consume TV on smart TVs or via streaming devices, for example Amazon Fire and Apple TV. They can also use Zattoo on mobile Internet-enabled devices such as smartphones or tablets and watch time-shifted TV. Zattoo operates under its own brand in Germany and Switzerland. The company also offers its solution to partners such as 1&1 and TV Spielfilm in Germany, Europe and the USA, whose customers use the Zattoo service under the partner brand.
