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  • Amazon heavily dependent on Diwali sale for revenue

    Amazon heavily dependent on Diwali sale for revenue

    MUMBAI: Not only do Indians eagerly await Diwali but so does Amazon it seems. The largest online retailer across the world has published a mixed result for the third quarter. While its revenue fell short of Wall Street expectation, it posted a record profit. On the other hand, despite the growth in domestic business, the international business showed a significant slowdown. Interestingly, a late Diwali in India has been cited as the reason which shows how crucial the Indian market has become for it.

    “There's also material change in the Diwali calendar in India. About half of our Diwali sales last year were in Q3. This year they'll be fully in Q4. So those are a couple factors that hit the international growth area in particular,” Amazon chief financial officer Brian T Olsavsky said in an earnings call.

    In India, Amazon is already fighting the domestic player Flipkart which is now backed by Walmart. The first leg of Diwali sale from both the player was around same time. Despite Flipkart’s popularity in India, three fold number of people signed up on Amazon to shop in the first two days compared to last year.

    “We've seen great response from customers. We've had 60 per cent growth in new customers during the period. Orders are coming in from 99 per cent of the pin codes in the country. So, great first wave of the, what we call the Amazon's Great Indian Festival, which lead into Diwali,” Olsavsky added.

    Advertising has been one of the major areas where the company reaped high profit. The revenue from the unit representing its display, sponsored product and other advertising revenue jumped 123 per cent, more than double the growth rate a year earlier.  While it is locked in a battle with Google, Facebook for digital ad pie, the company has made it clear that it won’t go down the road of ad-supported Amazon Prime Video soon.

    Amazon Prime membership, the card at hand to turn more consumers into shoppers, has continued to grow in US, as well as other countries. The company claims to be satisfied with the renewal data and annual sign up data since the price increase earlier this year.

    “Since then, program remains very strong, both in membership and engagement, and a lot of our video content, music and shipping definitely as well as other Prime Benefits. We just continue to see that ramp up, not only in the US, but in other countries. So we do continue to make the Prime offer better as well,” Amazon CFO said.

    Although the slowdown in international business led to fall in shares, it continued to reduce losses, which came down to $385 million in Q3 from $494 million in Q2. However, on the back of Diwali sale Amazon expects a huge boost to international segment reaffirming India’s importance in its business.

  • Amazon Q3 results fall short of Wall Street expectations

    Amazon Q3 results fall short of Wall Street expectations

    MUMBAI: E-commerce giant Amazon could not beat Wall Street expectation with its revenue and fourth quarter guidance in its third quarter earnings despite turning in a record profit. The company has reported a $2.9 billion profit for the three months ending in September topping $1 billion for the fourth consecutive quarter. Revenues of $56.58 billion fell short of expectations for $57.1 billion as well as guided revenue of $66.5 billion to $72.5 billion for next quarter.

    Its high margin business including cloud, advertising and third-party seller services propelled the growth of its profit more than its core retail business. Its cloud business by revenue saw sales up 45.7 per cent to $6.68 billion. On the other hand, its advertising business, jumped 123 per cent to $2.5 billion in revenue.

    “Net sales increased 29 per cent to $56.6 billion in the third quarter, compared with $43.7 billion in third quarter 2017. Excluding the $260 million unfavorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, net sales increased 30 per cent compared with third quarter 2017,” the company said in a release.

    For the fourth quarter guiding too, Amazon has anticipated an unfavorable impact of approximately 80 basis points from foreign exchange rates. But this quarter is most important for the company’s sales due to the holiday season.

    While total revenue increased 29 per cent from last year, a considerable trait has to be discussed. Though in its home market its growth was at high speed, in international markets that was lower. North American sales were $34.3 billion, up 35 per cent from last year but international sales grew just 13 per cent to $15.5 billion. The disappointing international result indicates that competition in e-commerce space is escalating.

    “Amazon Business has now reached a $10 billion annual sales run rate and is serving millions of private and public-sector organisations in eight countries,” said Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos especially mentioned this segment.

    “Amazon Business is adding customers rapidly, including large educational institutions, local governments, and more than half of the Fortune 100. These organisations are choosing Amazon Business because it increases transparency into business spending and streamlines purchasing, with increased control. The team is doing a fantastic job building and innovating for customers,” he added.

    Though Prime Video is a part of its attempt to turn customers for shopping by engaging through the video content, it has become a major competitor of streaming giant Netflix. “Prime Video continues to announce original series debuting in 2018, including: Homecoming, a psychological thriller starring Julia Roberts, and produced and directed by Sam Esmail; as well as season 2 of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, recent winner of eight Emmy awards including Outstanding Comedy Series,” the company added.

    Amazon is also launching monthly Prime membership in Canada and Mexico, quarterly Prime membership in China, and monthly Prime Student membership in Germany.

  • MIB proposes to change mandatory sports feed sharing norms

    MIB proposes to change mandatory sports feed sharing norms

     NEW DELHI: In what could have far reaching effects on the financial viability of sports TV channels or streaming platforms, which acquire exlcusive rights for sporting events for the India region spending billions of dollars, the government proposes to amend rules relating to mandatory sharing of feeds of sports of national importance with not only the pubcaster, but with other distribution platforms. Reason for proposed changes: people with less purchasing power should not lose out on the sporting excitement.

    “…viewers, who do not have DD FreeDish [pubcaster Doordarshan’s FTA DTH platform] or Doordarshan’s terrestrial network, are either unable to watch these sporting events of national importance or are compelled to watch these sporting events on highly priced sports channels and, thus, the very objective with which the Parliament had enacted the Sports Act has been defeated,” Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) said in a notice issued on 17 October 2018, adding that public comments were invited within a month on the changes proposed in the relevant regulation relating to sharing by rights holding private TV channels of broadcasting feed with the pubcaster.

    As per provisions of the Sports Act, the live feed received by Prasar Bharati from the content rights owners or holders is only for the purpose of re-transmission of the said signals on Doordarshan’s own terrestrial and DTH network (DD FreeDish) and not for
    cable operators or other distribution networks. The ad sales is also done by private companies after taking the pubcaster into confidence with the additional ad revenue shared between the rights holding TV channel and DD.

    Though the sports rule was legislated in 2007, the shared signals on DD were sometimes donloaded by distribution platforms from satellite-delivered channels and re-transmitted not only in India but also in some neighbouring countries. Seeing this trend, Star India, which was investing heavily in sports, had moved the courts and in August 2017 got a favourable ruling from the Supreme Court that ruled the shared feed of sporting events of national importance, as mandated by the government, can only be re-transmitted on DD terrestrial network and DD FreeDish to avoid piracy and possible loss of revenue for the rights holder.

    Additonally, private DTH platforms and MSOs/LCOs were barred from showing DD's non-terrestrial channels that re-transmitted the shared feeds after the August 2017 Supreme Court ruling for the duration of the that particular event and it was stressed on also by Prasar Bharati fearing adverse reaction from the apex court.

    Within few  days of the SC ruling favouring the rights holding TV channel or broadcaster and few days before the lucrative IPL cricket rights bids were opened last year, Jawahar Goel, chairman and MD of Dish TV, India's first DTH platform started by the Zee group, raised an alarm on Star's emerging cricket monopoly.
    In a hard-hitting letter, addressed to various Indian government organisations, including MIB, regulator TRAI and the anti-monopoly authority, Goel had alleged that combined with the financial muscle and near-monpoly over cricket for India region, Star's acquistions will impact "every stakeholder in the broadcasting industry, starting from the distributors of  TV channels". Star India finally outplayed other bidders for the IPL rights for the next five years in 2017 by coughing up a whopping $2.4 billion.

    In the light of recent developments in the distribution segment of the Indian broadcast system, MIB's latest move gains importance. So, what's the proposed amendment being sought to be inserted in the 

    Sports Broadcasting Signals (Mandatory Sharing with Prasar Bharti) (Amendment) Bill, 2018?

    The relevant portion of the amendment being proposed for which stakeholders' comments have been invited reads: “No content rights owner or holder and no television or radio broadcasting service provider shall carry a live television broadcast on any cable and/or Direct-to-Home network and/or IPTV and/or terrestrial network or radio commentary broadcast in India of sporting events of national importance, unless it simultaneously shares the live broadcasting signal, without its advertisements, with the Prasar Bharati to enable them to re-transmit the same on its own terrestrial network and Direct-to-Home network and on other television distribution platforms/networks where is it mandatory to broadcast mandatory channels notified by the Union Government under Section 8 of the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995 in such manner and on such terms and conditions as may be specified.”

    At present, Star India and Sony Pictures Networks India — the latter has a partnership with ESPN that got a divorce from Star for sports channels in 2012 — are two networks that own and manage sports channels in India. However, in recent times digital players like Facebook, Reliance Jio, Amazon and Alibaba-controlled Indian digital wallet company PayTM have shown interest and bid for cricket properties in India. Facebook also won the India rights for La Liga football that was streamed free on the digital platform, while being sub-licensed to Sony for normal TV broadcast.

    However, an industry observor pointed out that apart from the fact that the pubcaster's DD FreeDish platform could get further hit financially if the proposed changes are legislated, it was also highlighted  that what could have further spurred the government into action is that after TRAI's new tariff regime kicked in last month, most broadcast companies and TV channel managers converted FTA TV channels into pay channels  depleting further the basic FTA bouquet aimed at people with low purchasing power.

    It would be interesting to watch how this proposed change plays out with stakeholders.

  • Amazon Echo says experience everyday magic in new campaign

    Amazon Echo says experience everyday magic in new campaign

    MUMBAI: In today’s world, where people are worried that the growth of technology is drawing them apart, Amazon Echo’s new campaign aims to bring Indian families together with its smart speaker technology. The campaign stitches together an Indian family’s everyday situations that lead to small moments of everyday magic enabled by the Amazon Echo device.

    Conceptualised by Ogilvy Bangalore and directed by Aarthi Kakkad of Curious Films, the films tell the story of an Indian family where the father, mother and daughter encounters an endearing family moment that is relevant to a daily family setting. One film captures a sweet moment of the father being caught off guard by the mother and daughter secretly dancing to the tunes of a popular Bollywood song. While the other film encapsulates the traditional bond between a father and daughter.

    Ogilvy Mumbai executive creative director Neville Shah, “The simplicity of creative was broken down to one thing. How can the Echo be part of your everyday; like a family member. And since this is an extremely new category, familiarizing people with the use of the product is key.”

    “With the successful launch of Echo, Indian consumers have shown that they are more than ready to adopt new technologies which are relevant to them. The current campaign is continuation of our launch campaign about how Echo fits seamlessly in the lives of consumers and makes everyday moments special,” adds Amazon India director mass and brand marketing Ravi Desai.

    Ogilvy South senior vice president for head of planning Anirban Roy mentions, “The category is at a nascent stage and hence demonstrating relevant use cases of Amazon Echo was critical for us. We are trying to build the category and at the same time trying to create a positive disposition towards us.”

  • BSNL to launch 4G in Telangana; may partner Netflix

    BSNL to launch 4G in Telangana; may partner Netflix

    MUMBAI: According to an Economic Times report, BSNL Telangana Telecom Circle Chief General manager V Sundar informed that a project for 4G testing purposes in Telangana has been initiated. The project would be launched in Jadcherla town of Mahabubnagar district and Wyra town in Khammam district in November.

    BSNL is expecting to extend its 4G services all throughout the state by March 2019 after rolling out its services in these two districts of Telangana next month, stated a senior official.

    Even V Sundar confirmed the plans of expanding the company’s services by saying, “By March 2019, we expect to have 8-9 lakh new 4G customers.”

    Sundar also said that the state owned telecom is working to join hands with video service provider Netflix.

    With that, Sundar also briefed about the special tariff vouchers and offers that would be made available as part of its 18th foundation day and a partnership with Amazon for free Amazon Prime Video subscription for BSNL users.

  • Amazon India encourages entrepreneurship; partners ‘Sui Dhaaga’

    Amazon India encourages entrepreneurship; partners ‘Sui Dhaaga’

    MUMBAI: As the much-awaited film of the year s releases today, Amazon India has teamed up with Yash Raj Films to promote the entertainer through a pan-India TV and digital campaign.
    Aligning with the plot of the film, Amazon India encourages entrepreneurs to become Amazon Sellers and reap the benefits of selling their products not just in India but globally too.
    Building a business can be a Herculean task and that’s why a little bit of inspiration can help business owners take decisions that lead to big growth. Hence, as Yash Raj Films announced the release of its new movie Sui Dhaaga, Amazon.in wanted to promote the story of the young couple in the film, as it resonates with business owners and entrepreneurs on the platform. In fact, the story is similar to some of the inspiring stories of their existing sellers.

    The partnership and execution are conceptualised by Leo Burnett Orchard and Publicis Entertainment.
    Speaking about the partnership, Amazon Seller service director and GM Gopal Pillai says, “The story of Sui Dhaaga beautifully captures the entrepreneurial spirit of a seller with big dreams and aspirations. In our constant endeavour to transform the way India buys and sells, we stand with lakhs of such sellers in their journey to succeed and turn their dreams to reality. The core message of the film and the spirit of the protagonists resonate strongly with that of the Amazon sellers and hence the association. With the festive season around the corner, this also inspires sellers to register on Amazon.in and reach out to more than 300 million customers from India and across the globe.”
    Leo Burnett Orchard Bangalore ECD Neel Roy adds, “The moment I chanced upon the Sui Dhaaga story plot, I knew we had found the perfect match for Amazon Sellers. Amazon is a one-of-a-kind platform that gives wings to business dreams. And the transformation story in Sui Dhaaga was the perfect fit for us.”
    Publicis Entertainment executive director Pranay Anthwal mentions, “Branded entertainment is where brands meet entertainment. This is a co-marketing (outside of film) association for our brand Amazon with the film Sui Dhaaga. We are happy to be of use to our key clients as well as to the industry. Through this promo film, we hope to reach as many entrepreneurs and get them to sell on Amazon.”
    To further amplify this collaboration, there is also a unique trailer to the film, with Anushka Sharma and Varun Dhawan encouraging business owners to sell their products globally by registering on amazon.in

  • Amazon launches new ad ahead of Great Indian Shopping Festival

    Amazon launches new ad ahead of Great Indian Shopping Festival

    MUMBAI: Ahead of the festive season, Amazon India has unveiled its campaign for Amazon Great Indian Festival.
    Often during the festive season, the list of our desires makes our shopping list bigger than our budget. To help solve this during the upcoming festive season, Amazon.in will offer unique programs that will help customers shop without hesitation. These include, Amazon Pay EMI, no-cost EMI, EMI on credit and debit Cards, instant bank discounts and many more.
    Each TVC captures the tussle between working desires around tight budgets showcasing the value benefit offered by budget-busting solutions. The campaign also highlights availability of these offers across key categories like smartphones, fashion, large appliances and home and kitchen products.

    Conceptualised by Ogilvy, this year’s festive campaign is all about quelling budget woes and making festive shopping possible for everyone by fulfilling everyone’s shopping lists.
    Amazon India director for mass and brand marketing Ravi Desai says, “It is that time of the year again when the country looks forward to its biggest festival. As a common practice, families make long lists of desired items and then unwillingly save some for later as budgets don’t allow them to fulfil all their desires. More often, it is the person who spends for everyone else, who ends up sacrificing his/her own happiness. Inspired from these insights, we launched the campaign ‘Ab India Ki Kushiyon Ke beech Budget nahin ayeega’, positioning Amazon.in as the one-stop-shop that makes shopping more affordable, accessible and within the reach of every family’s festive budget.
    Ogilvy South chief creative officer Azazul Haque adds, “One of India’s biggest sales has to have one of the loudest bangs. And to create the big bang, we thought of creating the Amazon Indian Festival Band. The idea emerged from the brief, which was to develop a campaign on the festival insight where budgets never match our festival shopping lists. From buying the best electronics goods to branded fashion, we all wish to stretch our budgets. And the Great Indian Festival does exactly that. It makes your festival budget look bigger because of the big offers and deals.”

  • Eros Now to launch original regional web series by early 2019

    Eros Now to launch original regional web series by early 2019

    MUMBAI: Eros Now, the digital arm of Eros International announced its foray into the original content space with its first series Side Hero, with all episodes available for binge-viewing from 24 September 2018. Directed by Rohan Sippy and produced by Ramesh Sippy entertainment productions, Side Hero stars Kunaal Roy Kapur as a fictionalised version of himself, trying to become a lead hero and prove that acting is not just a hobby.

    The web series consists of eight episodes with duration of 25-30 minutes. According to Eros Group chief content officer Ridhima Lulla, all the shows Eros Now intends to create are multi-seasonal. The OTT platform plans to roll out one to two originals a month. “We don’t want to restrict ourselves in the genres we want to create. This one is comedy, you will also see in drama, thriller, mythology or fantasy,” she added.

    The show’s quirky tagline ‘IskoKaunDekhega’ takes a dig at Kunaal Roy Kapur’s character showcasing Side Hero’s self-deprecating humour.

    Eros Digital chief operating officer Ali Hussein said, “The platform is planning to launch regional content in early 2019. All our short form content is free and long form content is behind the pay-wall. Currently, we are trying to figure out how to work with the advertisers not just in the short form but also in the long form space. We won’t be like a traditional AVOD brand. We are in conversation with top 10 brands in the country like Cadbury, Fevicol, Nivia, Myntra, Diageo and they have all reached out to us.”

    Lulla mentioned that there will be regional focus too as Eros doesn’t want to only look at Hindi content. “First few months we will focus on Hindi but in the next couple of months we will be kicking off a lot of regional content as well,” she said.

    The digital entertainment platform plans to strategically encompass marketing elements such as on-air promotions, creating social media buzz, on-ground association, outdoor campaigns, radio spots and various PR tools, making it an impactful campaign. Side Hero will be extensively promoted on major broadcast channels through a 15-day long campaign alongside aggressive promotions on leading radio stations in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. Eros Now will also tactically use outdoor medium for promotions at 100+ sites in Mumbai.

    “We have got our partners like Google, Apple and many more doing something interesting for us. I think the surrounding noise of it is bigger than what Netflix and Amazon can potentially do because we are not necessarily dependent on a third party medium. Media value of our budget will be bigger than Amazon and Netflix because of our partnerships,” Hussein added.

    As of August 2018, Eros Now enjoys viewership from 100+ countries and is further strengthening its global presence. Eros Now will leverage its partnerships with leading international brands like Xiaomi Mi TV, Dialog Axiata and more to present its original content across Asia and beyond.

    “We are launching in at least 4-5 new countries in terms of specific alliance and partnerships in the next 3-4 months. We are already present to localise partners in key NRI markets around the world,” he concluded.

  • Essel’s Subhash Chandra on Zee, OTT giants & the Jio juggernaut

    Essel’s Subhash Chandra on Zee, OTT giants & the Jio juggernaut

    MUMBAI: Zee Entertainment Enterprises (Zee) has withheld challenges from international broadcasters to acquire a place as one of the top media companies in India. While several players with deep pockets are investing a high amount in content, Essel Group chairman Subhash Chandra, with 26 years of experience, says only money cannot buy the best content.

    Speaking to The Hindu, the media veteran said telecom, voice, data, and video all are merging into one single pipe. Moreover, Reliance Jio’s low pricing has made the delivery pipe cheap and affordable forcing other telecom players to do the same. This change will help content companies.

    “Even the Amazons, Googles and YouTubes of the world now call themselves media companies instead of tech companies. So, thanks to Jio, this process, which could have taken 5-10 years, has accelerated in India,” he added.

    However, he also pointed out Jio’s different nature of the business. The company tends more towards monopoly rather than being a part of the industry. This trend could catalyse the merger of content players with pipe and data, as it happened in America and Europe.

    Hailing content as the prime factor, he also said creativity comes above money. A big budget show cannot assure good ratings always. Despite expensive deals, he is sceptical of Jio’s ability to scale.

    “We have competed with all media companies. Today, NewsCorp is in India through Star. Time Warner was here, Viacom came, Sony is here, Discovery is here. So, of the top eight global media firms, five are here and we have competed with all. In 2007, a management consulting firm said India would be left with just three players and Zee is the weakest link that will either close or get sold. That didn’t happen,” he said.

    Amazon Prime and Netflix are also trying to acquire a stronger foothold in the Indian market given the high potential of the digital content business. Chandra said that Amazon being largely an e-commerce player tries to lure customers for shopping through content. Zee also shares content with the company. But as Netflix is a pure content play, it won’t share content with the streaming giant. The OTT platform’s situation is also different in the country due to its high pricing.

  • Cosmos-Maya’s strategy for global animation

    Cosmos-Maya’s strategy for global animation

    MUMBAI: Producing animation series isn’t a low-hanging fruit. Considering that a huge amount of money is spent on the production of animated shows than general entertainment channels (GECs) in the Indian television segment, it takes a big heart to risk Rs 20-60 lakh for an animated show’s 11-22 minute episode as against investing Rs 7-8 lakh to produce a daily soap.  But one man decided to don the hat of a filmmaker and launched an animation studio named Cosmos-Maya, realising the need to create more home-grown content rather than depending on overseas programmes on TV.  

    Cosmos-Maya, founded by Ketan Mehta, commenced its journey 20 years ago when he faced certain issues during 1993 in infusing some visual effects for a scene in his movie Maya Memsaab.

    Ketan said, “There was a shot required in the climax where we had to use special effects. Maya drinks a magic potion and disappears in the flame of light. I tried to shoot it in 10 different ways and it was still not satisfied because the technology was just not available in India at that point in time.” In search of the right equipment and expertise, he travelled to Hong Kong but to no avail.

    “I felt that it was a shame that India, which claims to be the largest film industry in the world, didn’t have the basic technology that a filmmaker wants. But fortunately, around the same time, visual technology was taking off, so we decided to take a leap of faith and start a studio,” he added.

    The journey was tough. Cosmos-Maya CEO Anish Mehta said that scaling up from 40 to 1200 employees was a major challenge. “It was a challenge in the beginning and it is a challenge now that it has been achieved. There have been a lot of ongoing hurdles. Ensuring that there is no repetition and bringing out this mirrored range of variety from a creative standpoint is also an ongoing challenge that is dealt with on a fairly regular basis.”

    Now, the company is filled with 1000 techno artists, 20 full-time writers and many other freelance writers and the plan is to double the employee count. 

    Albeit coming from a filmmaking background, his strong belief in launching a studio and training the employees in animation production resulted in a seamless production pipeline. “We produce 30 episodes per month and no other production house is able to produce the number of episodes that we make per month,” said Ketan. Filmmaking experience helped him create his own IPs.

    Bullish about India’s animation scenario today, like every other player in the market, Ketan also feels that it is growing rapidly. According to him, the industry will grow at least 17-20 per cent y-o-y. He believes that so far the growth in the industry has been television driven, but gradually feature films will also come into play.

    A major industry challenge was to evolve the IP rights system. Anish said, “The creation of successful IPs through partnerships is the way forward now because retention of IP has been a major focus area across all the key partners in the value chain. So we need to align with the partners who have a similar vision and share our philosophy. There has to be a complimenting set of goals that both teams are working towards and hence IP partnerships can work out.”

    The animation industry also sees digital being a major future area. According to Ketan, in the next 5-10 years, TV and digital segments will be complementing each other. 

    To take Cosmos-Maya global, the company is already working on developing a global idea. With the Emerald investment, co-production with European and Latin American companies has already commenced. “Now the growth strategy is, how to grow beyond the Indian domestic market,” Ketan added.

    Over the past five years, the company has produced a record 1,400+ half-hours of animated content for major TV and digital platforms, including Viacom18, Disney, Turner, Sony Pictures, Discovery, Netflix, and ALT Balaji. In addition to its hit series Motu Patlu, Cosmos Maya has an impressive twelve titles on TV now, including Shiva, Eena Meena Deeka, Kisna, Vir – The Robot Boy, Guru Aur Bhole, Chacha Bhatija, Tik Tak Tail and Selfie with Bajrangi.

    Pakistan is another major territory for Cosmos-Maya, as the Urdu version of the show Motu Patlu works well with the audience. The show is also dubbed for countries like Indonesia, Vietnam and Mauritius.

    Ketan feels that the Indian share in the global market still remains at 1 per cent. He said, “It has phenomenal scope to grow as we have skilled manpower and there’s no reason that we can’t do better in the animation sector.”

    With a bright future, Cosmos Maya is venturing into an unknown but hopeful future.