Eros picks up controlling stake in Techzone

Film production and distribution company Eros International Media Ltd has signed a Term Sheet toacquire a controlling stake in Universal Power Systems Private Limited, trading by the name Techzone, a mobile value added services (MVAS) provider for telecom operators in India.

The sum of the dealhowever, remains undisclosed.

Techzone is an aggregator, developerand distributor of entertainment content via mobile platforms inIndia. It is particularly focused on the Bollywood films and musicmarkets and has significant region-specific content in Tamil andTelugu.

The company has relationships and billing integration withmajor telecom networks in India to distribute its content and alsohas its own "Mobile Shortcode" 56,060. Techzone end-user servicesinclude caller ring-back tones (CRBT), mobile radio, short messageservice (SMS), wireless application protocol (WAP) and interactivevoice response (IVR).

Founded by Navin Bhandari in 1999,Techzone has had an average of 25 million SMS, WAP or IVRtransactions per month over the past three years across 12 majortelecom operators in India for which it bills the customers directlythrough its billing platform. This excludes CRBT transactions whichare also marketed and distributed by Techzone but billed by thetelecom operators directly.

"Techzone will be a strong additionto our ErosNow strategy where content meets technology anddistribution," said Jyoti Deshpande, CEO of Eros.

"WithTechzone's billing integration and distribution in place acrossmajor telecom operators and average transaction traffic of over 25 million monthly over the past three years, we expect this deal tocomplement our existing ErosNow service. With 870 million mobilesubscribers (including over 60 million internet enabled smart phones)in India as of year-end 2013, this is an exciting space for us."

Techzone MD an C EO , Naveen Bhandaricommented on the deal "This is indeed a proud moment for Techzoneto align with a market leader such as Eros. The consumption ofcontent through mobile platforms is on the increase and the timing ofthis alliance could not have been better."