Why Amazon Bought MX Player, and Why the Brand Is Already Gone

Amazon bought MX Player in 2024 to build a free streaming service for India, merged it with its own miniTV app, then closed the whole thing in July 2026 and moved the shows into Prime Video.

The odd part is that the app most people mean when they say MX Player is still here, still updated, and was never really the point of the deal.

Here is what Amazon actually bought, what it did with it, and what is left.

What Amazon Actually Bought

In October 2024 Amazon announced that it had acquired certain assets of MX Player from Times Internet, including the app itself.

It then merged those assets with Amazon miniTV, its own free ad-supported service, and named the combined product Amazon MX Player. Both original brands disappeared into that one name.

Amazon said the combined service reached more than 250 million unique users in September 2024, and put it everywhere it could reach: phones, the Amazon shopping app, Fire TV, connected televisions and inside Prime Video itself. The price was never disclosed.

Why It Made Sense at the Time

India is a hard market to sell subscriptions in and an easy one to sell advertising in, which is why free ad-supported streaming grew there first.

MX Player had the audience. Amazon had the advertising machinery, the devices and the content budget, but a smaller free service in miniTV.

Buying the bigger free audience and pointing Amazon's advertising at it was a straightforward trade, and on those terms it worked. What it did not do was justify keeping a second brand alive next to Prime Video.

What Happened Next

So Amazon retired miniTV to create Amazon MX Player, then retired Amazon MX Player twenty-one months later. The brand that survived is neither of them.

If you watched Aashram or anything else from that catalogue, it is in Prime Video now, and the free ad-supported tier came across with it. On iPhone, on the web and on television boxes, the old app simply points you there.

The One Piece Still Standing

The Android app is the exception, and Amazon said so in the same announcement that closed the brand.

It would carry on serving what Amazon called its native local player and its free ad-supported viewers, while everyone on other platforms was redirected. That is exactly what happened.

The app is published on Google Play by Amazon Mobile LLC, it has passed a billion installs, and new builds have been arriving every week or two through the summer. Two months after the brand was retired, it is still being updated.

One thing genuinely did go. MX Player Pro, the paid ad-free version, was pulled from Google Play in 2024 and has never returned, so the free ad-supported app is the only version there is.

What This Means If You Used MX Player

It depends entirely on which MX Player you mean, which is the confusion this whole story created.

• You watched the shows. They are in Prime Video, including the free ad-supported ones, and you do not need a subscription to reach that tier.
• You play your own files with it. Nothing has changed - the app still works and still gets updates.
• You want free live TV instead. Pluto TV is the closest free ad-supported replacement, and there are more in our IPTV Players category.
• You want a player with no ads at all. VLC for Android plays everything with no add-on and no ad layer, mpv for Android is the minimal option, and Kodi for Android suits a library rather than a file.

KMPlayer for Android and BSPlayer for Android are the other two worth a look.

For a television rather than a phone, we compare the options that behave properly with a remote in The Best Video Player for Android TV.

If you are staying with the app, one thing is worth knowing: surround audio still needs the free MX Player Custom Codec.

Our guides cover how to fix it with the custom codec and which build you need.

We also cover saving shows for offline viewing, and Best Media Players for EAC3 Playback compares the apps that need no add-on at all.

Sideloading the app rather than using the Play Store? Check whether a build needs Play services first, and read our guide to installing an APK safely.

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