Eros International to acquire mobile VAS firm Universal Power Systems

Eros International Media is set to acquire a controlling stake in Universal Power Systems (Techzone), a mobile value added services (MVAS) vendor.

The company did not share financial details.

Techzone focuses on the Bollywood films and music markets and has significant region-specific content in Tamil and Telegu.

The mobile VAS vendor, which has its own Mobile Shortcode 56060, offers content to end-users via caller ring-back tones (CRBT), mobile radio, short message service (SMS), wireless application protocol (WAP) and interactive voice response (IVR).

Techzone bills the customers directly for an average of 25 million SMS, WAP or IVR transactions per month over the past three years across 12 telecom operators — through its billing platform. This excludes CRBT transactions which are also marketed and distributed by Techzone but billed by the telecom operators directly.

Jyoti Deshpande, CEO of Eros International, said: “We expect this deal to complement our existing ErosNow service. With 870 million mobile subscribers including over 60 million Internet enabled smart phones in India as of year-end 2013, this is an exciting space for us.”