Sony Corp is to buy AT&T Inc’s animation business Crunchyroll for US$1.175 billion, the two companies said yesterday, as the Japanese electronics conglomerate aims to beef up its entertainment content and distribution businesses.
The deal would give Sony access to Crunchyroll’s 3 million paying subscribers across more than 200 countries and regions, helping Sony compete more globally with entertainment giants such as Netflix Inc.
Sony’s Funimation Global Group, a US animation distributor with 1 million paying subscribers, would own Crunchyroll, currently part of AT&T’s WarnerMedia segment.
Photo:AFP
AT&T has been looking to monetize its non-core assets since CEO John Stankey took over in June. The latest deal would allow it to invest in other focuses of WarnerMedia, including content creation and gaming.
Despite Crunchyroll’s loyal following among anime fans, AT&T felt the anime streaming service was too niche for the broader audience its streaming service HBO Max wants to pursue, a source familiar with the company said.
The proceeds are to be paid in cash at closing, AT&T and Sony said.
Sony is boosting gaming and entertainment businesses under CEO Kenichiro Yoshida’s strategy to increase recurring revenue streams that cushion the impact of volatile hardware sales cycles.
Sony bought Funimation in 2017 for about US$143 million.
The animation business has been thriving recently on the record-breaking success of the Japanese animated film Demon Slayer — codistributed by Sony’s music unit Aniplex Inc.
SEMICONDUCTORS: The German laser and plasma generator company will expand its local services as its specialized offerings support Taiwan’s semiconductor industries Trumpf SE + Co KG, a global leader in supplying laser technology and plasma generators used in chip production, is expanding its investments in Taiwan in an effort to deeply integrate into the global semiconductor supply chain in the pursuit of growth. The company, headquartered in Ditzingen, Germany, has invested significantly in a newly inaugurated regional technical center for plasma generators in Taoyuan, its latest expansion in Taiwan after being engaged in various industries for more than 25 years. The center, the first of its kind Trumpf built outside Germany, aims to serve customers from Taiwan, Japan, Southeast Asia and South Korea,
Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Monday introduced the company’s latest supercomputer platform, featuring six new chips made by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), saying that it is now “in full production.” “If Vera Rubin is going to be in time for this year, it must be in production by now, and so, today I can tell you that Vera Rubin is in full production,” Huang said during his keynote speech at CES in Las Vegas. The rollout of six concurrent chips for Vera Rubin — the company’s next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) computing platform — marks a strategic
Gasoline and diesel prices at domestic fuel stations are to fall NT$0.2 per liter this week, down for a second consecutive week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) announced yesterday. Effective today, gasoline prices at CPC and Formosa stations are to drop to NT$26.4, NT$27.9 and NT$29.9 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, the companies said in separate statements. The price of premium diesel is to fall to NT$24.8 per liter at CPC stations and NT$24.6 at Formosa pumps, they said. The price adjustments came even as international crude oil prices rose last week, as traders
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which supplies advanced chips to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday reported NT$1.046 trillion (US$33.1 billion) in revenue for last quarter, driven by constantly strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips, falling in the upper end of its forecast. Based on TSMC’s financial guidance, revenue would expand about 22 percent sequentially to the range from US$32.2 billion to US$33.4 billion during the final quarter of 2024, it told investors in October last year. Last year in total, revenue jumped 31.61 percent to NT$3.81 trillion, compared with NT$2.89 trillion generated in the year before, according to
RSS