Sony has recently acquired Crunchyroll. The acquisition was completed by the Sony Pictures division in a $1.175 billion deal on Monday. The company had earlier acquired Funimation, too. Now the company looks forward to “create a unified anime subscription experience as soon as possible”, according to Sony Pictures CEO Tony Vinciquerra.
Sony has not clarified when this “experience” will come out or how will it be. It has been noted that Crunchyroll and Funimation will continue being separate streaming platforms for now. The company has also not commented on how the deal will affect the subscribers.
Vinciquerra said that “With the addition of Crunchyroll, we have an unprecedented opportunity to serve anime fans like never before and deliver the anime experience across any platform they choose, from theatrical, events, home entertainment, games, streaming, linear TV — everywhere and every way fans want to experience their anime.”
Sony had announced that it was acquiring Crunchyroll from AT&T in 2020. Crunchyroll had then a total of 3 million subscribers and 90 million registered users in more than 200 countries. Now the numbers have gone up to 5 million subscribers and 120 million registered users within a year.
