“We are already producing 4000 minutes of animation in 2D and close to 2000 minutes of animation in 3D which is quite big as compared to any standards. Our idea is to be in the top five slot when it comes to quantity of production in the next two to three years,” disclosed Toonz Media Group, CEO, P. Jayakumar in an exclusive interview with AnimationXpress.com.
Founded in 1999, Toonz Animation was Kerala’s first animation studio. In fact, Toonz started the animation industry in Kerala with just 100 people and today after 17 years it has grown into a multi global company making $10 to $15 million business from India alone.
Mastering in production of animated and live-action content, Jayakumar said, “Production of content is the business that we started with and this is our bread and butter. But the business that will take us on top is the distribution, digital, licensing, merchandising business and acquisition of other companies.”
Toonz is currently in talks with a lot of major players in India, China, USA, New Zealand, Middle East Asia, Spain and many other regions to enrich their business further. “We are looking for acquisitions mainly in the digital, licensing and merchandising space. The idea is that by March 2017 we want to be a completely integrated media company. Digital business is what we already have but we are looking for another business platform at the Silicon Valley,” he added.
In the next two to three months, Toonz will be able to complete the transaction with the US based company. Keeping the name of the company under wraps, Jayakumar added, “As that company is in the top 5 of the digital business of the US, it will help make Toonz a major player in the digital space globally if they come on board. In the next two to three years, I am seriously looking at buying companies that are strategically important to us.”
Toonz Media Group can be predicted to be the next Disney with a billion dollar revenue. Just a case study revealed by Jayakumar, which supported this possibility, explained that Toonz’s software company UST Global, which was founded along with Toonz on 1 November, 1999 at Trivandrum, began with 40 people and has today grown to 18,000 employees. “Today, UST Global is the No.1 IT business in Kerala and has 1.2 billion dollar revenue. So, we are growing in all aspects,” he explained.
Toonz Animation is working on creating animated content majorly for TV series and digital platforms. It is also working on creating live action content and animated feature films some of which are already in production. Toonz Media Group has also ventured into the gaming genre as well and is planning to start its Spanish, Turkish, Arabic and Russian YouTube channel in the coming months.
This directly indicates that Toonz Media Group is growing at an exponential rate. And, with these huge acquisitions and rapid digitalisation in the pipeline, it can surely create tremors of great magnitude in the Indian and global market.
