Cricket Companion Completes Acquisition Of CrickZenga

Cricket Companion, a mobile application based on the game of cricket, has acquired CrickZenga – a mobile phone app that delivers live cricket scores, updated cricket news, results, schedules and statistics to users, for an undisclosed sum, as per a company announcement.

Details of the backers of Cricket Companion could not be immediately ascertained but the website shows the copyright with a firm called Cricket Companion FZ LLC, which means it is owned by a Dubai-based company. The transaction appears to have been struck sometime in the past but the formal announcement has been made only now.

With the conclusion of the acquisition, Cricket Companion now boasts 8 million downloads, the firm has disclosed on Monday.

The firm company also claims that on an average, the app is accessed by 200,000 unique users each month and around 500,000 unique users during cricket tournaments featuring three or more teams.

Commenting on the acquisition, Vikramjiet Roy, director of Cricket Companion, said, "Most CricZenga users have now upgraded to the Cricket Companion app and we continue to see increased downloads since England's India tour and the West Indies tour. Also, we have witnessed a higher utilisation of our advertising inventory. This gradual but sustained shift of advertiser interest to a mobile application base, especially in the Indian context, is very heartening, not only for us, but for the entire mobile ecosystem."

Cricket Companion is available for all mobile devices and Tablets including the iPhone and the iPad. Using a 2.5G or Wi-Fi connection, users can access latest headlines, interviews and results of cricket matches. Cricket Companion services are accessible across mobile networks including Idea, Vodafone, Airtel, Aircel, BSNL, MTNL, Reliance, Tata DoCoMo, etc.

Others players in similar space include Cricinfo which was acquired by sports broadcasting major ESPN four years ago and has now been rebranded as ESPNcricinfo. Another popular site is Cricketnext. The company was acquired by Web18 Software Services Ltd for Rs 1.4 crore five years ago.