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Tag: APAC

  • JAINHITS uplinks on 11.3 meter ViaSat antenna in the APAC

    JAINHITS uplinks on 11.3 meter ViaSat antenna in the APAC

    NEW DELHI: Headend In The Sky (HITS) operator JAINHITS has become the first service provider to uplink on 11.3 meter ViaSat antenna in the Asia-Pacific region.

     

    The antenna is in line with the latest digitisation amendments announced by the government. This installation will allow JAINHITS to provide better signal quality which is available at all business partners downlink set-up. In addition to this, the quality of signals emitted will be uniform and will significantly eradicate interference of any kind.

     

    On this endeavour, Noida Software Technology Park Ltd (NSTPL) head- regulatory & corporate affairs Devinder Singh said, “With the commissioning of 11.3 meter ViaSat antenna, we expect high quality of pan India based digitised TV coverage. We have got all the mandatory tests done and will start up-linking very soon. With the advent of this technology and its implementation by JAINHITS, we hope to re-invent the entire TV viewing experience for our customers by providing them with the maximum network uptime.”

     

    From a compliance standpoint, the antenna complies with FCC and ITU regulatory standards on emissions. Apart from that, it meets INTELSAT’s Standard F-3 and B requirements with minimal satellite re-pointing time using a high speed motorised option. It even comes with 180 degree continuous azimuth coverage and features like lighting, protection and de-icing that can make it survive wind speeds in excess of 201 km/hr.

     

    JAINHITS head Rakesh Gupta said, “With an insight into this dynamic consumer world, establishing an up-link with the 11.3m ViaSat is a part of our on-going effort to enhance the TV viewing experience for our customers.  JAINHITS distribution partners across India will get to approach customers with a unique set of product USPs, one of them being BIS certified STB’s and the other of course a technologically advanced platform and uplinking facility through 11.3m ViaSat antenna for better picture quality, and with uninterrupted signals.”

  • APAC digital subscribers to reach 503 million by 2018: MPA

    APAC digital subscribers to reach 503 million by 2018: MPA

    MUMBAI: Media Partners Asia (MPA) has come out with its report on the Asia Pacific pay-TV and broadband market for the next five years. It predicts that DTH satellite pay-TV customers in Asia are expected to grow from 56.3 million in 2013 to more than 110 million by 2018, a CAGR of 14 per cent.

     

    The report titled ‘Asia Pacific Pay-TV and Broadband Markets 2014’ states that by 2023, DTH’s share of the total pay-TV market will nearly double to 24 per cent as the customer base reaches 150.4 million. Meanwhile, HD DTH subscribers will increase from 10.4 million in 2013 to 37.3 million by 2023, driven by high growth in India and China as well as steady growth in Japan, Korea and Southeast Asia.

     

    DTH subscription revenue is expected to grow at a five year CAGR of 9 per cent to $ 12.3 billion by 2018 and $ 15.2 billion by 2023. It also predicts that the market for DTH pay-TV will further consolidate as growth converges across fewer operators in markets such as India and Indonesia. In markets such as Thailand, DTH pay-TV is struggling as free DTH services have started to breed, penetrating 60 per cent TV homes. One such is Free Dish that will prove to be important to digitisation in rural and smaller towns.

     

    The APAC pay-TV market will grow at a 10 per cent CAGR between 2013 and 2018. This will be enhanced by the subscriber jump from 312 million in 2013 to 503 million by 2018 while digital penetration of pay-TV homes expands from 62 per cent to 83 per cent.

     

    Commenting on the findings, MPA executive director Vivek Couto said, “We see operating leverage growing for market leaders in India, Indonesia and Malaysia in particular as well as long-term upside from strategic recalibration in Australia and New Zealand. Better monetisation in the Philippines should help the market leader properly scale its DTH business and take it to the next level. We also predict incremental growth and value in Vietnam.”

     

    The report states that among maturing markets, Malaysia is a leader with Astro as one of the most innovative operators in the world, good at increasing both subscriber growth and ARPUs as well as investing in product innovation. DTH ops in Australia and Japan continue to face headwinds. Hybrid DTH-IPTV distribution has helped sustain KT SkyLife’s proposition in Korea.

     

    In India, broadband is a long term consideration even though all the top four DTH operators are looking at mobile partnerships and wireless broadband strategies.

     

    IP-based distribution and broadband delivery is a challenge for DTH networks which are adapting to these realities to reduce long-term challenges. In Korea, the KT SkyLife combination retails triple play services. In Indonesia, MNC group that owns MNC Sky Vision (MNCSV) plans to rollout a bundle of IPTV and fiber-based broadband services and merge them with MNCSV.  In Malaysia, Astro has adapted to IPTV partnerships but with slow progress. In Philippines, Cignal has also embraced hybrid IP delivery.

  • Verizon promotes Francis Yip to lead Asia-Pacific business

    Verizon promotes Francis Yip to lead Asia-Pacific business

    NEW DELHI: US telecom operator Verizon has made a change to its top management. Francis Yip has been promoted to group vice president of Verizon Asia Pacific. Most recently he was Verizon managing direct for north Asia, responsible for its business in Hong Kong, China, Korea and Taiwan.

     

    Verizon Enterprise Solutions president Christopher Formant said that in his new role, Yip is responsible for delivering strategic cloud, security, mobility, network and connected machines solutions to Verizon’s multinational enterprise clients across the APAC region.

     

    Formant said: “Francis is an exceptional talent, and we believe he has the experience and expertise to continue to grow our business in APAC. His leadership in north Asia in the past two years has earned him a first-class reputation for commercial acumen. His in-depth understanding of technology businesses in Asia, particularly in emerging markets, will be instrumental in helping our customers move their businesses forward.”

     

    Prior to joining Verizon, Yip was responsible for managing Dimension Data’s north Asia operations. He has also held senior management positions at Equant (now Orange Business Systems) including general manager for China. A native of Singapore, Yip is fluent in several languages including English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean and Malay.

     

    He replaces Andrew Dobbins, who announced his retirement earlier this month. Verizon Enterprise Solutions provides advanced IT and communications services to enterprise and governments around the world. 

  • We intend to launch localised channels in APAC countries: Sushruta Samanta

    We intend to launch localised channels in APAC countries: Sushruta Samanta

    MUMBAI: It’s been a hectic time for Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (Zeel), having forayed into the Thai market with Zee Nung just last week.  However, Zeel Asia Pacific (APAC) business head Sushruta Samanta took time out from his busy schedule to speak to indiantelevision.com about the future roadmap of the newly-launched channels as well as further expansion plans of the company in the APAC region. Excerpts…

     

    What is Zeel’s strategy in the APAC region?

     

    There are two kinds of markets in APAC. One is the already developed markets including Japan and Korea, China could also be a part of it but it’s still developing in terms of GDP and Media at a faster pace. These three together would probably be 65 per cent of APAC, excluding India. The remaining are the emerging markets that are growing at a very fast rate in terms of pay TV penetration as well as economy and GDP size. In terms of sizing, excluding India, pay market in the rest of APAC would be approximately $45 billion in terms of net ad and subscription revenue put together.

     

    From the Zeel perspective, we have a two-prong strategy: one is how do we enter bigger markets that are already kind of Red oceans in nature, second is the new emerging fast-growing markets where we believe it is the right time to enter. Pay business is such that the later you enter, the higher are the entry barriers, issues like bandwidth, placement, carriage and others. So, timing is very critical.

     

    In the emerging markets, where we did our feasibility research first, there are three kinds of business models we target. The first part is where we take our Indian channels and connect with the Indian viewers. This is the NRI and PIO population. They are the ones who want to connect and consume Indian content the Indian way, with the same language and packaging, probably with additional subtitling only.

     

    The second is the local audience. This is a much bigger segment and the one we prefer to connect through repackaging and redirection of our content. When we conducted our research in selected APAC countries, we identified specific countries we wanted to enter first. These are the markets where we saw a huge connect and an affinity for Bollywood and Indian content. The general population in these markets would love to consume Indian content if it is repackaged well as per their taste, language and culture. In some markets, dubbing works well while in others, they prefer to consume the content in the subtitled format. The third is to create content locally when the time and opportunity is right.

     

    How has the APAC business shaped up for Zee Bioskop and what are the plans for Zee Nung?

     

    We started with research and focus groups in key cities in Indonesia and designed the product based on those inputs. We are already on four key platforms in Indonesia including Aora TV, Kompass, Orange TV, Transvision and are scheduled to launch on two more now. Zee Bioskop is currently reaching out to half a million pay TV homes there. Indonesia is an interesting market as it has more than nine DTH operators along with cable operators operating separately. It is a small pay penetration market but growing at a quantum speed now. The 2013 subscriber base saw a growth of more than 35 per cent over 2012. This trend is expected to continue and is hence an important market for us at this point of time. We have an office in Jakarta for the first time and a local team under Maria Liza, country head Indonesia, driving this business.

     

    Once we launched Zee Bioskop, we realised that the model was working well in Asia Pacific and we looked at the second market identified earlier during our research and entered Thailand with Zee Nung. One critical aspect of this business model is that we are very clearly a pay channel model, which means we make platforms believe in our product and they are then ready to share the revenues per subscriber basis. In Thailand, we launched on Cable Thai Holding (CTH), the biggest pay operator in the market, because they thought the product will work really well. Zee Nung is on FTA mode till 15 June for mass trial after which we will convert it to pay mode. Veria Living is next in line. In Thailand, CTH has a market penetration of 65 per cent and we are in talks with them for other products as well including Veria. We also opened an office in Bangkok headed by Vaishali Kasturia, Country Head Thailand who is driving the business locally.

     

    3) What is the long term goal for Zeel in APAC?

     

    We were the first to launch channels targeting Indians across the world but their number in APAC will be very less, less than even 1 per cent of the total population in the region. The main audience will have to be the locals in these countries, which is the mainstream segment and a far bigger revenue pie. Once our strategy of these repackaged & redirected channels is successful, the next step will be to move to the next level and create locally produced content and probably a completely local channel.

     

    In Indonesia we are planning to do local production with Zee Bioskop once we start our ad sales for the channel. We are currently not doing ad sales because we want to give the initial value to consumers and boost to the channel. We will start with a reality show down the line and a year or a year and a half later, we will look at regular production of local content for the market. These will compete directly with the local channels.

     

    Launching movie channels first is the base for understanding the market insights and viewing behaviour, setting up a strong local team and then slowly getting in with local content production. We first want to establish the Zee brand at the household level. Brand Zee has a very strong equity in APAC but we need to transfer that to the viewer level. Once that happens, we will extend it to local channels.

     

    4) What is the business model for movie channels?

     

    We have a library of more than 3,500 Indian movies, one of the largest in the world, and we can use that to our advantage to launch channels. We are focusing on subscriber revenue more than advertising because it is bigger and growing faster in this region. At Zee, we are also very particular on our branding and positioning strategy in each of these countries. We have some of the best agencies working for us, eg Grey for Zee Nung, FCB Jakarta for Zee Bioskop and Lowe for the upcoming channel in Vietnam. These initiatives will also play a crucial role in popularising Bollywood to the masses in these countries.

     

    5) What is the contribution of the APAC business to Zeel’s entire international business?

     

    The contribution of APAC to our international business is relatively low as compared to the other territories at this point of time. However, with the series of channel launches planned, we are looking at quantum growth and increase of our share in the next couple of years. The APAC ARPU at consumer levels fluctuates widely by country; however, the average is about $7.5. Markets like Thailand and Indonesia are above the average on key platforms that we are targeting. 

     

    6) Which are the other APAC markets that Zeel is targeting?

     

    We are the only Indian channel to have been given the hotel landing license in China which is a big deal, we are now looking at making that business grow big and also create possible products targeting the mainstream Mandarin audience. We would also like to look at markets like Philippines, Cambodia, Myanmar and Sri Lanka with a cost effective model to launch since their market sizes are not that large yet but growing fast. Japan, Australia and New Zealand are also big markets and we are currently doing our feasibility researches to identify and design suitable products targeting the local population. For Australia and New Zealand, we already have a team in Sydney working on this. In the next three years, all our new launches will start bearing fruit increasing our market share in the region significantly. In the next five to seven years, we should be a leading local player in these markets. In line with our corporate philosophy and goal, to become a leading player at a global level will be possible once we are localised and mainstream across markets.

  • Swarovski elevates Francis Belin to sr VP consumer goods business APAC

    Swarovski elevates Francis Belin to sr VP consumer goods business APAC

    MUMBAI: In a recent development, Swarovski has promoted Francis Belin to take a bigger role in the company. 

     

    Belin who has been in charge of Swarovski’s consumer goods business for Greater China since August 2011, has now been elevated to senior vice president consumer goods business APAC.

     

    Based in Hong Kong, Belin is responsible for the strategic direction and the development of the company in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao.

     

    Starting from April 2014, he has extended his scope – beyond Greater China – to take over Swarovski’s consumer good business for Asia Pacific, including key markets like Japan, Korea, Australia and India. Belin is also a member of the Board of Advisors of Kid’s Earth Fund (Japan) and since April 2013, has been appointed to the advisory committee of the Swarovski Foundation.

     

    He joined Swarovski in January 2008 as Managing Director for Japan. Under Belin’s leadership, Japan has achieved to be the second fastest growing market in the world after Mainland China, thanks to major upgrades in brand positioning, brand awareness and distribution network.  Prior to joining Swarovski, Belin started his career in Management consulting at McKinsey&Co in Europe and Asia, and worked as Managing Director of Jaeger-LeCoultre (Richemont) in Japan. 

     

    Originally from France, Belin holds a degree in Management from the ESSEC Business School in France and a Diploma Kaufmann from the University of Mannheim in Germany, majoring in Business administration and Psychology. 

  • Dentsu Aegis Network launches psLive

    Dentsu Aegis Network launches psLive

    MUMBAI: Dentsu Aegis Network has announced the launch of experiential marketing agency psLive in Asia Pacific.

     

    During 2014, psLive will be rolled out to all key Asia Pacific markets.  Dentsu Aegis Network South Asia chairman and CEO Ashish Bhasin will take on the additional role of chairman APAC, Posterscope and psLive – Asia Pacific.

     

    Dentsu Aegis Network Asia Pacific CEO Nick Waters said, “psLive will play an important role in Asia Pacific, particularly in key markets like ANZ, South East Asia and India. We see this as a fast growth area for our business in the years to come.”

     

    Detailing the plans for psLive in APAC, Bhasin said: “We will begin with rebranding our existing, vibrant experiential business in markets like India, Malaysia and Indonesia in the near future, to psLive. In Asia Pacific the below the line part of marketing communications spend for key clients is growing at twice the rate of above the line spends. psLive gives us a unique opportunity to offer diverse, professional experiential marketing solutions to our clients in APAC. Country specific, customized services will be offered spanning across activation, events, rural marketing, PR, partnerships and other areas, depending upon the needs of each market.”

     

    psLive Worldwide chairperson Annie Rickard commented, “The experiential market is growing rapidly.  Social media and smartphones have transformed experiential, giving it scale and measurability. Our network operating model means that we will be able to bring media insight into brand experience, which will ensure we deliver relevant innovation to our clients.”

     

    psLive will announce country wise and marketwise roll out plans shortly, beginning with India, where the psLive launch will be announced soon.

  • IPAN Hill+Knowlton Strategies announces new leadership for key offices

    IPAN Hill+Knowlton Strategies announces new leadership for key offices

    MUMBAI: Hill+Knowlton Strategies, one of the leading and most respected public affairs and public relations firms in the world, today announced changes to the leadership in two of its most established offices in India, reflecting a period of sustained and robust growth across its largest operations.

     
    Vinod Moorthy, a member of the H+K Strategies team since 2007, has been appointed as Senior Vice President, North India and APAC regional Corporate Practice Leader. Vinod will be based in the H+K Strategies Gurgaon office and takes on this new role after a successful tenure as Senior Vice President, West.

     

    Devasis Chattopadhay, who joined H+K Strategies in early 2013, has been promoted to VP, West India with responsibility for the Mumbai operations and the continued growth of the finance practice across India.  He most recently served as Senior Client Services Director in Mumbai.

     

    Radhika Shapoorjee, President, South Asia & India, H+K Strategies commented: “The opportunity in a market like India is that we are in transformative times where we are seeing a political and social change that will have a huge impact on business.  This rapid pace of change and growth needs leaders who are flexible and quick to adapt new environments with ease.  We inherently believe in giving our senior people the opportunity to experience new markets and take on new roles both in India and internationally.  Vinod has been an instrumental part of the Mumbai business for over seven years, and in that time has grown our footprint into diverse sectors including infrastructure, entertainment, FMCG and finance and we’re looking forward to seeing more of that expansion in North India.  Devasis has exactly the right level of experience and passion to take the Mumbai business forward to even greater heights. These are exciting times for us here in India.”

               

    Vinod has been associated with the Indian communications industry for over two decades, and has exposure spanning diverse sectors & disciplines. He is a crisis communications expert and has advised CEOs across a wide range of industries on issues including managing policy & regulatory challenges, factory closure & industrial relations, consumer crisis, NGO activism, tax litigation, aircraft crash landing, and environment & health issues.

     

    Devasis brings nearly three decades of senior experience in the corporate and financial communications sector to H+K Strategies. His special expertise is in identifying and resolving the highest priority communication challenges of diversified corporate entities and organizations operating across sectors.  Before joining H+K Strategies he held senior positions in companies in the finance and various industrial sectors.

  • HDS creates ‘#TheBigShot’ campaign for Bing

    HDS creates ‘#TheBigShot’ campaign for Bing

    MUMBAI: Hungama Digital Services has created a unique and one-of-its kind photography led social media campaign for Bing, one of the leading search engines by Microsoft.
     

    Bing’s homepage displays spectacular images across genres that people like to engage with; keeping this as the driving thought, HDS designed Bing’s #TheBigShot campaign that aims to bring together budding photographers to share their images with Bing and MSN to become part of Bing’s homepage imagery. The 6 week contest kick started on 10th March, 2014. Weekly themes will be unveiled by the Jury, thus inviting entries for submission in each of the categories.
     

    “We are very pleased to partner with Hungama Digital Services for this initiative. The Bing search engine is steadily gaining momentum and its visual richness is one of its top features. We are therefore excited about reaching out to top photographers across the country with our joint campaign”, says Vinay Kumar, APAC Head, Bing Partnerships.

    A celebrated jury comprising leading photographers of India such as Hari Menon, Rathika Ramaswamy, Venky of Photriya Photography and Dr. Ceaser Sengupta will not only be screening the entries, they will also aid amateur photographers with tips and tutorials to hone their photographic skills. The jury will declare a weekly winner in each of the categories, who will have their image featured on the Bing homepage for a day. Bing will also enlarge the image to poster size and send it across to them. Besides being featured in the downloadable wallpaper pack of the Microsoft website, the winning entries will be featured prominently on Bing and MSN India Facebook pages.

     
    “Images can have a very deep and lasting impact. Bing is a pioneer in this space with the beautiful imagery that goes on every day on the search engine. It makes for a beautiful experience! So we thought, why not involve our fans and ask them to contribute? Through #TheBigShot campaign, we want to nurture budding photographers and provide them with a platform to showcase their work, making it a one of its kind social media campaign”, says Kunal Arora, Head Digital Services, Hungama Digital Services.
     

    Bing’s #TheBigShot campaign reaches out to anyone and everyone who is interested in photography including amateur photographers. It will include all forms of photography across categories and themes such as People and Cultures of India, Emotions, Wildlife, Birds, Landscapes, Cityscapes and Night Life, In the lap of Nature, Macro, Micro, flora and fauna as well as Abstract.
     

    In order to participate in the contest, fans have to follow Bing India’s official Facebook page and submit their images for various themes suggested by Bing India over a span of 6 weeks.

  • Mindshare elevates R Gowthaman and Sudipto Roy

    Mindshare elevates R Gowthaman and Sudipto Roy

    MUMBAI: In a move to strengthen its hold in market and understanding the ever-changing, technology- driven time, Mindshare has appointed R Gowthaman as chief operating officer and Sudipto Roy as regional chief client officer for Asia Pacific.

     

    Gowthaman will take on the role of COO Asia Pacific after spending a year as chief client officer, APAC and CEO south and south-east Asia. During this time, he was responsible for Mindshare’s key clients across the region and expanding the agency’s services, including the launch of an emerging market activation unit across ASEAN in partnership with Geometry Global.

     

    In his new role as COO, Gowthaman will focus on continued development and delivery of Mindshare’s services to marketers across the marketing value chain – from emerging consumer activation at one end to big data management on the other, and a more effective business model for working with clients.

     

    Gowthaman said, “I am extremely delighted to take on this role. I am especially looking forward to designing and rolling out new work streams that provide Mindshare’s clients with great new opportunities and accelerate sustainable growth of our business. Despite our scale and size, we are increasingly behaving more and more like a start-up – provocative, hungry, adaptive, full of energy all underpinned by a promise to be the agency of the future.”

     

    Roy takes over from Gowthaman as chief client officer Asia Pacific following a two-and-a-half-year stint as managing partner of Client Leadership and Partnerships. During this time, his primary responsibility was to run some of Mindshare’s key accounts including Unilever, Kimberly Clark, Lenovo and others.

     

    In his role as CCO, Roy will focus on growing Mindshare’s relationship with its key clients across Asia Pacific, by creating faster, more agile and adaptive marketing services for them.  Roy will also spearhead creation of a stronger open source collaboration model around Mindshare’s key clients, with relevant partners from WPP as well as other independent companies. Roy will report to Gowthaman in this role.

     

    Mindshare is forging a number of partnership programmes with ‘hot’ companies coming up in emerging economies, in analytics, media technology, e-commerce, B2B, social media, mobile and more, to complement the current global partnerships already in place with Google, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, Yahoo and many others. Roy’s new role focuses on leveraging some of these partnerships to help its clients’ brands be more adaptive to near real time consumer response, and continuously improve the way they use various media platforms to grow their brands.

     

    Commenting on his appointment, Roy said, “I am passionate about our clients’ businesses and how we think about them, so this move is exciting as it enables me to focus on what I really love. I believe we have a great opportunity to drive cutting-edge thinking for Mindshare and our clients, and fundamentally re-imagine how we think about media services while continually raising the standards for how media agencies can drive ROI. I really look forward to this part of the journey.”

     

    Mindshare chairman & CEO for APAC and growth market Ashutosh Srivastava said, “We are privileged to have highly talented people like Gowthaman and Roy stepping into these roles. Over the years, they have developed trusted relationships with our clients, by focusing on what they value most. These roles are incredibly crucial for us at this stage and will help Mindshare continue to lead the industry thinking, and shape its development and growth at an exciting time, where understanding of media, technology and effective data usage are becoming more and more central to brand success.”

     

    Both Roy and Gowthaman’s roles are effective immediately and will be based in Singapore.

  • GroupM promotes Gaurav Hirey as chief talent officer, South Asia

    GroupM promotes Gaurav Hirey as chief talent officer, South Asia

    MUMBAI: GroupM has announced the appointment of Gaurav Hirey as chief talent officer, south Asia.

    Hirey has been a part of GroupM since 2008 and is currently the regional HR director, APAC. In his new expanded role as CTO, South Asia, he will be responsible for driving the agenda on people, culture and values at GroupM which will include employee acquisition, training, development, retention and growth for India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

    On his new role, Hirey said “India and South Asian markets are exciting markets. We have been able to innovate and raise the bar year after year. Mumbai is home ground and so always a pleasure to be back! I am very excited about the new leadership and the new vision at GroupM South Asia and look forward to leveraging the last 2 years of my international exposure and the network to help and impact business results.”

    He will continue to work with GroupM APAC regional talent team and will be based out of Mumbai from 1 January, 2014. And will also be a part of the GroupM aouth Asia executive committee and will report to GroupM South Asia CEO CVL Srinivas and GroupM global CTO Angela Ryan.

    Speaking on the appointment, CVL Srinivas said, “GroupM has always placed a lot of emphasis on Talent and over the years we have built a strong talent team. As we move to the next stage of the People Transformation journey, I am pleased to welcome Gaurav Hirey back as our Chief Talent Officer (CTO) – South Asia. Gaurav has a successful track record of making things happen and is the best person to lead our people agenda. We look forward to having him back with us.”

    Hirey had joined GroupM in 2008 in Mumbai and built the human resources function at GroupM India, making it one the best employer brands in the country, before moving into a regional role in Singapore. Under his direction, GroupM is the only media agency to have won the Employer Branding Award for ‘Best Employer’ three years in a row from 2009 to 2011. For the last two years Hirey was based in Singapore where he worked on GroupM APAC projects and also had the mandate of being a business partner for Maxus APAC.