Orange expected to finalise buy-out of Dailymotion

Back in January 2011, Orange purchased 49% of Dailymotion for approximately €60million in a “two-part transaction”.  As reported in Les Echos this week , Orange has now decided to go all in and buy the remaining 51% for €72million.  They plan to involve a partner in the deal, potentially Qualcom, and expect to close the deal in January 2013.

The deal is primarily a strategic one for Orange as, although they are a major player in distribution of content the IPTV space, Orange’s goal is to own the content and/or establish closer links with content owners.  As an aggregator of content, owning Dailymotion gives them access to the content owners with whom Dailymotion has struck distribution deals.  After years of fairly substantial investment, Dailymotion is now profitable, which also likely improved their attractiveness in the eyes of Orange. Dailymotion has had it’s ups and downs over the years, but has generally been a French success story.  Launched in 2005, they’ve raised $70 million since their founding and expanded beyond France to establish a global presence with 34 localised versions. Although overshadowed by youtube in the online video space, Dailymotion still generates over 135 million unique monthly visitors 1.8 billion videos per month.