It’s official: Fumination, the parent company of Wakanim and a subsidiary of Sony, has officially bought the Japanese animation broadcasting platform Crunchyroll. Rumors on the matter started in August, and the deal was eventually closed for almost $ 1.2 billion.
We told you about it a few days ago, Sony is about to buy Crunchyroll. It’s now official! AT&T has signed an agreement to sell Japanese animation streaming site Crunchyroll to Sony’s Funimation group. The transaction was made for a value of $ 1.175 billion in cash, announced the two companies. With this sale, Sony is taking a dominant position in the Japanese animation market in the United States, and the company is delighted. ” The union of Funimation and Crunchyroll is a victory for anime fans around the world that will elevate the art and culture of this medium for decades to come. ”Said Colin Decker, CEO of Funimation Global Group, in a press release.
Crunchyroll also expressed their enthusiasm for this new situation. ” We are delighted to embark on this new journey », Said Joanne Waage, CEO of Crunchyroll, in a press release. At the same time, the company announced that the platform currently has 3 million subscribers and more than 90 million registered users in more than 200 countries. The union of these two giants of Japanese animation is undoubtedly good news for otaku. Some experts believe that it could mostly be a strategy to deal with Netflix. Indeed, the latter has continued to grow its market share in the field of anime recently.
For the moment, all the purposes of this new collaboration are not known. But the benefits for the fans should be felt little by little.