Mumbai : Digital movie distribution companies K Sera Sera and United Media Works have merged to form a new equal joint venture called KSSUMW Digital. K Sera Sera’s Satish Panchariya will be the chairman, while United Media Works’ Ashish Bhandari will be the managing director of the new company.
“A lot of our processes were common to both companies and in a way were doing double work and maintaining same teams separately. This merger will bring efficiency in our system and better technologies synergies. While the teams will be merged and we plan to retain all the employees, we will find ways to increase our revenues faster,” said Vineeta Dwivedi, chief executive officer of K Sera Sera Digital Cinema.
K Sera Sera and UMW have a little over 5% market share individually at present. After the merger, the company aims to capture 25% market share in the next two years and plans to spend over Rs 100 crore to beef up its services. The new company will distribute movies to about 600 screens in Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, West Bengal, Karnataka, Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Maharashtra, Himachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh.
It plans to increase the count to 2,000 screens within two years and expand its footprint across southern and eastern India. “There are around 5,000 screens in the southern markets and are mostly cineplexes.
It consists of 60% of all the cinema theatres in India. Moreover, producers down south are always open to working with new distribution companies and so there is a huge scope to grow,” said Ashish Bhandari, joint managing director of United Media Works.
