PARIS (Reuters) - Vivendi's video-sharing website Dailymotion said on Tuesday it signed new partnerships with major U.S. music and media providers to stimulate its viewership and better compete world giants Facebook and Alphabet's Google.
The three new partnerships were signed with Vivendi's Universal Music Group, Time Warner's international news channel CNN and Vice Media, Dailymotion said in a statement.
The website is betting on gaining new viewers through higher quality content and a new smartphone application that will be launched in France on July 25.
"The new version will favor well-produced videos," Dailymotion's chief executive Maxime Saada said.
"There is an opportunity for us to serve a population aged between 18 and 49, upper-middle class, which is not necessarily well served by other platforms."
About 100 engineers were recruited over the past twelve months to work on the application, which has less aggressive advertisements features, Saada added. Total staff should reach 400 by year-end.
Vivendi acquired about 90 percent of Dailymotion two years ago for 246 million euros ($274 million). The group has invested about the same amount to develop the new Dailymotion offer, a source close to the matter said.
The platform has 300 million unique users per month worldwide. This represents a fraction of Google's YouTube platform, which has more than a billion users, or almost one third of all people on the internet.
(Reporting by Mathieu Rosemain ang Gwenaelle Barzic; editing by John Irish)
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