Sony wants to acquire Crunchyroll animation streaming service for $ 957 million

Sony wants to take over animation streaming service Crunchyroll, according to sources from Nikkei. The acquisition would cost $ 957 million. That is converted about 821 million euros. Negotiations are said to be well advanced.

According to Nikkei, Sony is the only company currently interested in acquiring Crunchyroll. The two companies are said to have entered into ‘final negotiations’. Nikkei writes that Sony can eventually spend up to 100 billion yen on Crunchyroll. That amounts to approximately 821 million euros.

Crunchyroll was founded in California in 2006 and became a subsidiary of American telecom provider AT&T in 2017. The streaming service currently has more than 70 million free members worldwide. The service also has three million paying members. Crunchyroll mainly focuses on anime series, although it also offers Japanese live-action drama series and digital manga to its members.

The first noises about a Crunchyroll takeover by Sony already surfaced in August. The Information then reported that AT&T had offered a takeover to Sony, even though the company was asking $ 1.5 billion for it. Sony already owns Funimation, another streaming service that focuses on anime. That service currently has more than a million subscribers.