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Mobile gaming company Nazara Technologies has acquired a majority stake in Chennai-based Nextwave Multimedia, a firm popular for its mobile cricket games, for an undisclosed amount.
Nextwave owns the intellectual property rights for popular mobile game World Cricket Championship (WCC).
With the acquisition, Nazara, has strengthened its portfolio of offerings in the virtual interactive sports genre in India and other emerging markets, the company said. The acquisition comes after Nazara’s investments in Mastermind Sports, Moonglabs, and more recently HalaPlay.
The popularity of WCC franchise offers Nazara an ideal platform for ushering in virtual reality arcades and launching m-sports around cricket in India.
Industry data by App Annie lists WCC2 as among the top 10 games in India in terms of time spent playing the game and the number of monthly active users.
In 2017, WCC2 made it to Google Play’s Editor’s Choice. The game also made it to the best games and apps for the year listing on Google Play, consecutively for 2015, 2016 and 2017.
The WCC franchise, with its twin game offering, has approximately 15 million monthly active users as of November 2017.
Nazara already has partnerships with Virat Kohli and Royal Challengers Bangalore. This acquisition will further help Nextwave augment brand WCC among Indians worldwide, the firms said.
“Nextwave offers a strong promise of dominating the space globally with its massive fan base and a very strong product offering,” said Manish Agarwal, CEO, Nazara Games.
“The complementary skill sets of Nextwave and Nazara, and the synergy in between is sure to accelerate growth of Nextwave in coming years. Nazara’s expertise in creating scalable and profitable business models around consumer transactions globally will give us the needed impetus to grow along with them,” said PR Rajendran, founder and CEO, Nextwave.
In December 2017, asset management firm India Infoline Finance’s Special Opportunities Fund had acquired a minority stake worth ₹330 crore in Nazara.
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