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Will LeEco’s device-content bundling strategy pay off in India?

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MUMBAI: There’s a content acquirer on the prowl in India. And it is carrying a fat purse to buy and create the content. Chinese company Leshi Internet Information & Technology aka LeEco – introduced its Super3 TV sets in India last week – and a day later a whisper campaign started that it was going to spend top dollar to build a robust OTT content ecosystem to encourage uptake of the screens by Indian consumers.

The figure being bandied about is US$200 million or Rs 1,330 crore, according to media reports. It reportedly is in talks with Netflix in the US to offer its content on its devices – which includes smart phones, TV sets, and even smart cars. And it has appointed a content head Harini Calamur whose job is to work with local producers, and distributors to build up its Indian content roster further.

Its LeEco content ecosystem was launched earlier this year (in May 2016) when it introduced its Le 1S Eco phone at a price tage of Rs 10,899 (discounted to Rs 9,999 in the early flash sale period). Existing phone owners wanting to subscribe to the content package would have to ante up Rs 450 a month separately or Rs 4,990 annually.

LeEco’s plan to sell 100,000 of these phones through a flash sale on Flipkart on 12 May was a resounding success with the ecommerce site having to shut the registrations quickly. 70,000 of its devices were sold in two seconds.

LeEco later launched the Le Eco Le 2 and Le Max 2 phones in India in July.

And finally its latest line of LeEco Super 3 smart TVs launched in early August. The Super3 X55 is priced at Rs 59,790, Super3 X65 at Rs 99,790 and Super3 Max X65 at Rs 1,49,790. These are being made available for pre-sale on Flipkart, as well as LeEco’s e-commerce platform LeMall, from 10-12 August.

It announced that the LeEco content ecosystem would be available to buyers of its Super TVs also which would allow them to access the movies and TV channels. All that they would have to do is download a software update.

The LeEco content ecosystem has content from YuppTV, Eros Now, and Hungama.

Its Yupp TV deal, under the brand Le Live, allows customers to watch Sony Entertainment, NDTV, Gemini Movies, 9X Tashan, Sun TV, Times Now, Nickelodeon, Colors, and others, in multiple Indian languages.

Its Eros Now partnership allows it to offer 2,000 plus movie titles in various languages under the brand Le Vidi.

Its Hungama relationship has resulted in the Le Music app under which users can listen to 3.5 million tracks and another bunch of live concerts (in partnership with iConcerts).

The Le View app which users also have access to consists of curated YouTube content categorized into news and politics, science and technology.

Will this strategy of bundling content with TV sets and phones work in India? Especially at a time when data usage costs are a dampener? And when cable TV and DTH are offering a slew of channels at low sticker prices. Observers doubt that the content that is on offer in the LeEco content system currently could be a driver for sparking off TV set sales; the TV sets would be bought on their own merit in comparison to the LG, Samsung, Sony, Vu, Videocon and Haier offerings.

As far as phones are concerned it could be a different story on account of LeEco’s perceived quality and lower prices.

“Whether they will use the services in their homes on their TV sets or not is a moot question,” points out a senior media observer. “The audience that is using Wifi to watch video in their homes is in nano proportions compared to DTH and cable TV. The content library is also not exclusive and alluring enough.”

Adds another media expert: “Consumption on the phone seems a more likely bet because there is some amount of on the go viewing happening in India. Mobile service providers have already resorted to a round of bandwidth cost cuts in advance of the Reliance Jio launch. But even so costs are still too high for consumers to binge watch on the phone. Maybe another round of price cuts will come to pass and that will bring costs down further. We will have to wait and watch. ”

LeEco could draw some inspiration from what it did in Hong Kong earlier this year. It coughed up $400 million for exclusive rights for the region for the English Premier League, probably the highest for Asia, to add to its catalogue of other sports and entertainment content.

It then bundled its hardware and software into a promotional pack wherein customers subscribing to the Premier League matches for two years at a cost of HK $1,690 a year got a 40 inch TV set free. If customers opted for a more premium Premier League package at a cost of HK$2,490 per year for two years, they got their hands on a 43 inch TV set at no cost to them. The super sports plan also included access to LeEco’s newly secured English FA Cup and other international sporting events such as Major League Baseball (MLB), men’s and women’s China Super League and the Copa Libertadores soccer tournament in South America.

LeSports chief executive Cheng Yizhong had then stated that “The days that users have to pay for their own device have gone and we are trying to develop a content-led platform for our users. They only have to pay for the content and the device will be given free.”

“The promotion worked very well and the company notched up HK$27 million in buy-ins in over just two days,” says a Hong Kong based media expert.

Indian media observers believe that LeEco will have to pick up rights to sports events like cricket or top Bollywood movies and these need to be exclusive for its device-content ecosystem package to work with the masses.

“Tieups with Netflix are just incremental steps as its has barely 50,000-70,000 paying subscribers and the content there is not that expansive,” says the head of an ad agency. “If it has to get into the mass market it needs to offer fiction and non-fiction shows which will then pit it in competition with the existing majors such as Star, Sony, Colors and Zee. Now that is totally a different ball game. Exclusive sports and films could be alluring as well as sticky for subscribers. Look at how well Star’s hotstar does when the cricket comes up.”

Another media observer points out that its game strategy could attract buyers. LeEco plans to put out more than 500 plus high end games on its content ecosystem, eliminating the need for consoles.

“That could be a game changer for its content play,” says she. “Let’s not worry too much however. We are in the very early days of the OTT industry’s play out in India. Go back to the late nineties: no one believed that satellite TV and cable TV would really explode the way it has in the country. Yes, the different players will make mistakes, they will course correct, they will spend money, they will lose money, they will make profits, they will course correct again. But the good thing is that another optional mode of video delivery and for entertainment is being given the push in this country.”

iWorld

Netflix celebrates a decade in India with Shah Rukh Khan-narrated tribute film

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MUMBAI: Netflix is celebrating ten years in India with a slick anniversary film voiced by Shah Rukh Khan, a nostalgic sprint through a decade that rewired how the country watches stories. The campaign doubles as both tribute and reminder: streaming did not just enter Indian homes, it quietly rearranged them.

Roll back to 2016 and television still dictated schedules. Viewers waited weeks, sometimes months, for favourite films to appear on prime time. Family-friendly filters narrowed options further, and piracy often filled the gaps. Then Netflix arrived, softly but decisively, carrying a catalogue of international titles rarely seen in Indian theatres and placing them a click away. Old blockbusters and new releases suddenly coexisted on the same digital shelf.

The platform’s real inflection point came in 2018 with Sacred Games, a breakout series that refused to dilute India’s grit for global comfort. Audiences embraced its unvarnished tone, signalling readiness for stories that did not need box-office validation or censorship compromises. What followed was a steady procession of relatable narratives. Competitive-exam anxiety fuelled Kota Factory. College relationships unfolded in Mismatched. Everyday pressures, not grand spectacle, proved bankable.

Language barriers thinned as foreign series arrived with Hindi, Tamil and Telugu dubbing, expanding viewership beyond urban English-speaking pockets. Marketing mirrored the shift. For global releases such as Squid Game, Netflix leaned on regional creators and influencers to localise buzz and make international content feel native.

The library widened beyond fiction. Documentaries stepped out of festival circuits into living rooms. Stand-up comedians found scale. Established filmmakers, including Sanjay Leela Bhansali with Heeramandi, embraced the platform’s long-form canvas. Subscriber numbers swelled to 12.37 million in India, according to Demandsage, and behaviour followed suit. Late-night binges became routine. Friday release rituals loosened. Watch parties turned solitary screens into social events.

Economics demanded adjustment. Early subscription pricing carried a premium aura that deterred many households. Over time, Netflix recalibrated plans to align with Indian spending sensibilities, conceding that accessibility is as critical as content. To extend momentum around marquee titles, the platform also experimented with split-season releases, stretching anticipation and watch time.

The anniversary film, narrated by Shah Rukh Khan, captures the linguistic shift that mirrors the cultural one: from “Netflix pe kya dekha?” to “Netflix pe kya dekhein?” The question moved from recounting the past to planning the next binge. In ten years, Netflix morphed from foreign entrant to familiar fixture, exporting Indian stories abroad while importing global ones home. The remote no longer waits; it chooses, clicks and moves on. In the streaming age, patience is out, playlists are in, and the next episode is always one tap away.

 

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e-commerce

Tulasi Mohan Padavala elevated to Associate Director at Blinkit

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Gurugram: Blinkit has elevated Tulasi Mohan Padavala to associate director, capping a three-year climb inside the quick-commerce firm and signalling confidence in an executive steeped in ecommerce, category management and on-ground sales execution.

Padavala shared the update publicly, saying he was “happy to share” the promotion, a succinct announcement that nevertheless marks a notable step up within one of India’s fastest-moving delivery platforms. The new role follows nearly three years at Blinkit, where he most recently served as senior category manager from February 2023 to January 2026, focusing on strategic sourcing and assortment planning.

The promotion places Padavala in Blinkit’s mid-to-senior leadership tier at a time when the company continues to expand its rapid-delivery footprint and sharpen category economics. His brief tenure as associate director began in January 2026, with responsibilities expected to span category growth, supplier strategy and cross-functional execution.

Before Blinkit, Padavala spent a short but intensive stint as global ecommerce manager at Wholsum Foods, the parent of Slurrp Farm and Millé, between November 2022 and February 2023. There he worked on digital marketplace expansion and online retail operations, adding a direct-to-consumer and international ecommerce layer to his résumé.

A longer stretch at Amazon shaped much of his cross-border commerce experience. As business development manager for Amazon’s India Global Selling programme from February 2021 to October 2022, Padavala helped Indian D2C brands enter the North American market. His remit ranged from seller recruitment and category revenue management to coordination with industry bodies, regulators and logistics partners. Key outcomes included launching more than 50 D2C consumable brands in the United States, driving a cumulative gross merchandise sales figure of $1m in FY21-22, tripling sales for participating brands during Prime Day through marketing and visibility levers, growing the monthly recurring revenue of more than 10 newly launched sellers from zero to an average $20,000 each, and negotiating ecommerce partnerships that reduced initial launch costs by 20 per cent.

Padavala’s earlier career was forged in the field rather than the dashboard. At Coffee Day Group, he spent close to five years across multiple sales leadership roles. As sales manager in the Greater Delhi Area from July 2019 to January 2021, he led vending-machine and consumables sales for small and medium enterprises with a team of more than 15 assistant and territory sales managers, managed over 2,000 clients, drove upselling and cross-selling, maintained channel partnerships and ensured timely collections. Prior to that, he served as area sales manager in Delhi between May 2018 and June 2019, handling south and east Delhi markets, and earlier in Hyderabad from April 2016 to May 2018, where he led Andhra Pradesh sales for the vending division, supervised service and logistics functions and managed a base of more than 600 machines with a four-member team.

His professional arc began with internships that combined analytics and process improvement. At Boehringer Ingelheim in 2015, Padavala analysed the impact of brand extension on the drug Pradaxa, identified key performance indicators through market research and assessed sales forecasts, recommendations that drew positive responses in pilot studies. Earlier, at Genpact in 2014, he automated manual sales-order backlog reporting using VBA and Excel, increasing efficiency by 800 per cent, and worked on benchmarking metrics within supply-chain planning processes.

From automating spreadsheets to scaling cross-border ecommerce and now steering quick-commerce categories, Padavala’s trajectory tracks the evolution of India’s retail economy itself. Blinkit’s bet is clear: blend data, discipline and delivery speed. The promotion formalises what his career already suggests. In the race for instant commerce, experience that moves from warehouse floors to global dashboards is no longer optional. It is the engine.

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e-commerce

Bharatpe plays a super over as Rohit Sharma fronts T20 push

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MUMBAI: When the stakes rise and seconds matter, even payments need a match-winning finish. That’s the cue for Bharatpe, which has rolled out Super Over, a nationwide campaign led by Indian cricket captain Rohit Sharma, timed neatly ahead of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup.

The campaign draws a straight line between the pulse of cricket and the pace of everyday digital payments. A new brand film taps into India’s emotional bond with the game, while positioning UPI as the quiet hero that keeps daily transactions ticking along at match speed.

As part of Super Over, users making payments via Bharatpe UPI can bag daily rewards ranging from match tickets and signed merchandise to a chance to watch a T20 World Cup fixture alongside Rohit Sharma himself. Both consumers and merchants are also assured Zillion Coins on every eligible transaction, adding a little extra sparkle to routine payments.

Behind the scenes, Bharatpe is also batting for safety. The platform is backed by Bharatpe Shield, a fraud-protection layer designed to offer enhanced security, comprehensive coverage and dedicated support aimed at helping users transact with greater confidence as digital payments scale up.

Announcing the campaign, Bharatpe head of marketing Shilpi Kapoor said Super Over mirrors the aspirations of everyday Indians, combining speed, security and instant rewards to make UPI transactions feel both reliable and rewarding.

The campaign will play out across digital platforms, social media and on-ground activations nationwide, staying live through the T20 World Cup season proof that in cricket, as in payments, timing is everything.

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