France Telecom's Orange could acquire 100 percent of video hub Dailymotion by 2013 if current talks to buy 49 percent of "the YouTube of Europe" go as planned, the telco said.
The two companies are in "exclusive talks" France Telecom's CEO Stephane Richard said during a press conference today. Dailymotion is a potential rival to Google's video hub. France Telecom sees it as a potential revenue source and, Richard said, will help the telco address customer desires for video across all three screens, and will help Orange as it looks toward a more aggressive play in the HD and 3D space.
Dailymotion is valued at $163.4 million, a price Richard said he believed was "very reasonable."
Richard in the past has said that companies that create large amounts of traffic for networks, like YouTube, Apple and Facebook, should be charged for data usage to help maintain them. By getting a piece of Dailymotion, FT would be in line for revenues from advertising.
Dailymotion says it saw 93 million visitors in October.
For more:
- see this WSJ story
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