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Tag: Brazil

  • Revenant Xspark levels up to worlds glory

    Revenant Xspark levels up to worlds glory

    MUMBAI: Talk about a supercharged respawn! Revenant Xspark has blasted its way into the Brawl Stars World Championship 2025, marking another milestone moment for Indian esports.

    After a power-packed performance at the Last Chance Qualifier (LCQ) held in São Paulo, Brazil, from October 10–12, the team secured one of only four golden tickets to the world finals. Led by India’s Ashmit “Sergeant Clash” Raj Singh, along with Singapore’s Jayden “x9Jay” Wong and Jerome “Response” Kuek, a former world champion, Revenant Xspark proved that strategy, synergy and sheer skill can bridge borders.

    This triumph makes it just the second time an Indian team has qualified for the global Brawl Stars stage, further cementing India’s growing might in competitive gaming. In their debut season back in 2023, Revenant Xspark had already made waves with a Top-8 finish at the World Championship, and this year, they’ve truly powered up.

    “Our victory at the LCQ in São Paulo is not just for Revenant Xspark, but for Indian esports as a whole,” said Revenant Esports founder Rohit N Jagasia. “The players showed world-class skill, discipline and resilience. Representing India at Worlds will be a huge honour.”

    For team captain Ashmit Raj Singh, the journey was anything but easy. “We had a tough bracket with some of the best in the world, including two-time world champions Crazy Raccoon, yet we were called dark horses,” he said. “We put in the most effort into both draft and gameplay. Now, we want to show the world that our region can’t be underestimated anymore.”

    From clinching their first LPL Monthly Finals title in March to dominating the Subregional Grand Finals and now finishing Top-4 at the LCQ, Revenant Xspark’s 2025 has been nothing short of a highlight reel.

    With this achievement, Revenant Esports, founded in 2021 and home to over 45 athletes across eight rosters, continues to prove that India’s esports scene is no longer playing catch-up. It’s in it to win it.

     

     

  • IBC honours Thelma Schoonmaker with top award as Globo and EBU team recognised

    IBC honours Thelma Schoonmaker with top award as Globo and EBU team recognised

    AMSTERDAM: IBC has named legendary editor Thelma Schoonmaker as the recipient of its highest accolade, the International Honour for Excellence. A three-time Oscar winner and lifelong collaborator of Martin Scorsese, Schoonmaker will also appear in a fireside chat at the Rai Amsterdam on 14 September, free for all attendees.

    Two other major honours were announced ahead of the IBC Innovation Awards. Globo will receive the IBC Special Award, recognising a century of media innovation and leadership in Brazil. Meanwhile, a Swiss team from the European Broadcasting Union and HEIG-VD will take home the best technical paper award for groundbreaking research on artificial intelligence in trusted news.

    This year’s awards highlight both sides of the media equation: Schoonmaker’s enduring commitment to the art of editing, Globo’s forward-looking broadcasting strategy, and the EBU-led team’s pioneering work applying AI to journalism. Winners will be formally recognised at the IBC Innovation Awards ceremony on 14 September in Amsterdam.

  • Ad it up, Moloco and Xiaomi dial up global reach with ML-powered alliance

    Ad it up, Moloco and Xiaomi dial up global reach with ML-powered alliance

    MUMBAI: What happens when one of the world’s biggest smartphone giants teams up with a machine learning marvel? A global ad tech power play. Moloco, the operational machine learning company, has struck a global strategic partnership with Xiaomi’s International Internet Business Department, unlocking a fresh frontier in mobile advertising across more than 100 countries and regions. With Xiaomi boasting a staggering 702 million monthly active users, the alliance is set to supercharge advertising efficiency, targeting accuracy and developer growth worldwide.

    As part of the deal, Moloco will bring its ML chops to optimise ad placements across Getapps (Xiaomi’s overseas app store), in-app inventory and lock screen ads. In return, Moloco’s advertisers get front-row access to Xiaomi’s high-value user base served through a tech ecosystem spanning mobile, smart homes, and even electric vehicles like the new Xiaomi SU7.

    Having tested the waters in a pilot partnership in 2023, the results spoke for themselves. Daily ad spends soared, native and interstitial ad formats drove stronger conversions, and Xiaomi’s presence across Brazil, India, Turkey and Germany emerged as a serious magnet for advertisers chasing scale and precision.

    Moloco, co-founder and CEO Ikkjin Ahn called the partnership a response to the rising need for “efficient monetisation and the ability to reach the right users.” He added, “Xiaomi’s global ecosystem is a perfect match for our machine learning platform. Together, we’ll unlock serious ROI for advertisers and push the boundaries of programmatic efficiency.”

    Xiaomi International Internet Business general manager Qiang Song echoed the sentiment, noting that Moloco has already “helped enhance the competitiveness of our ad platform.” With more AI-powered tools on the horizon, both companies are eyeing innovative monetisation models that could reshape how brands connect with mobile-first consumers.

    Whether you’re an app developer chasing downloads or a marketer craving smarter reach, this partnership may just be the algorithmic edge you’ve been waiting for.
     

  • Max gets a manga-nificent makeover with Japanese drama rollout

    Max gets a manga-nificent makeover with Japanese drama rollout

    MUMBAI: Is it a romcom? A legal thriller? A dark comedy with a deadly title? Max says: Why not all of the above? In a bold eastward expansion of storytelling, Warner Bros. Discovery and Japanese streaming powerhouse U-Next are taking their relationship to the next level by giving Japanese dramas a global passport.

    After launching Max within U-Next in Japan last year, the partners are now flipping the narrative. A curated bouquet of 10 Japanese series, including TBS’s much-awaited Love is for the Dogs and TV Tokyo’s deliciously morbid Please Die My Beloved, will be released across key international markets starting with the U.S., Brazil and Southeast Asia.

    Also in the lineup: Ignite (a legal drama with teeth), Mr. Mikami’s Classroom, Who Saw the Peacock Dance in the Jungle?, La Grande Maison Tokyo, its special episode Light of My Lion, Until I Destroyed My Husband’s Other Family, and Baby Assassins. The slate cuts across genres from slow-burn psychological thrillers to culinary family sagas and assassin-led chaos ensuring there’s more than one flavour for every binge palate.

    This cross-cultural programming exchange is no accident. U-Next president and CEO Tenshin Tsutsumi confirmed that since their exclusive tie-up with WBD in September 2024, expanding Japanese IP globally has been a core focus. “We’re handpicking shows that don’t just do well at home but hit the right emotional notes internationally,” he said.

    U-Next currently offers the largest SVOD catalogue in Japan, per GEM Partners, with add-ons like e-books, e-manga, e-magazines, and a seven-year Premier League streaming deal thrown into the mix. Its 2023 merger with Paravi has also deepened its access to local favourites from TBS and TV Tokyo making it a treasure trove of binge-worthy content.

    For WBD, it’s another power move in its global localisation playbook. Operating across 220+ territories in 50 languages, the media giant is leaning into regional partners to give local stories international wings, proving that you don’t need subtitles to go viral, just good storytelling.

    The international rollout of the Japanese drama collection on Max will begin later this year. Dates? Still hush-hush. But the message is loud and clear: Japan’s dramas are no longer just for Japan. And Max is ready to stream the love.

  • Spotify Q4 strikes a chord with record-breaking 16 per cent revenue uptick

    Spotify Q4 strikes a chord with record-breaking 16 per cent revenue uptick

    MUMBAI: Spotify has cranked up the volume on success, wrapping up 2024 with a Q4 that hit all the right notes. The music streaming powerhouse saw nearly every key metric outperform expectations, proving that when it comes to growth, Spotify is playing a chart-topping hit.

    The platform’s monthly active users (MAUs) surged to 675 million, marking a 12 per cent year-on-year (YoY) increase, while premium subscribers climbed 11 per cent to 263 million. Clearly, more people than ever are hitting play on Spotify’s offerings, and the company isn’t skipping a beat.

    Revenue swelled to €4.24 billion, reflecting a 16 per cent YoY increase, with both premium and ad-supported segments driving the momentum. The premium segment alone raked in €3.7 billion, up 17 per cent, fueled by strong subscriber growth and an uptick in average revenue per user (ARPU). Meanwhile, ad-supported revenue reached €537 million, a seven per cent annual rise, even as the global ad market faced turbulence.

    Spotify’s advertising business continued its ascent, with both music and podcast ad revenue showing solid gains. However, pricing softness in some regions tempered overall ad growth. Automated sales channels played a pivotal role in pushing ad revenue higher, especially in fast-growing markets. The ad-supported gross margin rose to 15.1 per cent, an increase of 351 basis points (bps) YoY, reflecting smarter monetisation strategies and enhanced content efficiencies.

    Not to be outdone, Spotify’s gross margin soared to 32.2 per cent, a resounding 555 bps increase YoY. And for the real showstopper: the company recorded an operating income of €477 million—its highest ever—securing its first full year of operating profitability.

    In the realm of free cash flow (FCF), Spotify turned the dial all the way up. The company generated €877 million in Q4, pushing its total FCF for 2024 to a record-breaking €2.3 billion. That’s a lot of cash dancing to the beat of Spotify’s success.

    With the company in full growth mode and its financials singing a happy tune, 2025 looks like another year where Spotify will keep the hits—and the numbers—rolling.

  • Wireline broadband pricing might reduce by 40-50%

    Wireline broadband pricing might reduce by 40-50%

    MUMBAI: Home broadband, television services and integrating wireline voice is expected to move towards bundled plans by the Indian wireline broadband market. With this, ICRA predicts, the pricing is expected to reduce by around 40 to 50 per cent.

    As per the ET reports, the agency said that similar to the strong growth that was observed for wireless broadband, wireline broadband subscriber base can also witness growth due to its high price elasticity and expanding demand. It also added that over the next five years, the home broadband and DTH market would see a greater role of telecom operators with a higher subscriber base and revenue generation. But the key watch-outs for the industry would be the extent of competitive intensity, and the need for capex.

    ICRA sector head and VP – corporate ratings Harsh Jagnani said that the wireline broadband penetration in India is much lower as compared to international standards and presents a significant opportunity for telcos. 

    In India, the wireline broadband coverage would largely expand through the fibre to the home (FTTH) networks which have the capability to deliver high speeds with stability in the network. "This will allow it to be the bedrock for content delivery to homes, thereby encompassing an umbrella of services including wireline voice, wireline broadband and television. Increasingly, the television industry is shifting towards content on demand and high-quality videos/content," he said.

    ICRA said in a statement that India's wireline broadband subscriber base can increase to 100 million households over the next five years, and the revenue generation from these segments could expand to Rs 80,000 crore as against Rs 14,500 crore now from wireline voice, home broadband and DTH services, with the combined ARPU of Rs 875.

    "In such a scenario, wireline broadband can be the next growth driver with the potential to subsume television/DTH services, also providing diversification from the mobile services revenues," ICRA said.

    The penetration of wireline broadband is low in the country as of now and the subscriber base has not seen any meaningful traction over the years. As on September 2018, the subscriber base was only 18 million, accounting for less than 7 per cent of the total households, much lower than 44 per cent in Brazil and 99 per cent in France. In the television segment, while the total penetration is around 66 per cent of the total households, of this, around 65 per cent are provided over copper cable, on which the capability to provide high bandwidth services are limited and not fully developed.

    Jagrani said, “Even at a penetration level of 30 per cent of the households, this could translate into subscriber base of 100 million by FY2024, generating revenues to the tune of Rs 80,000 crore. Correspondingly the revenue contribution from these services is expected to increase from current 8 per cent to around 30 per cent on an expanded revenue base."

    As of now, the industry has fibre network of 17,20,000 route km. Much deeper and wider penetration is required to be able to meet the envisaged FTTH demand, which will encumber the financials of the telcos.

  • Prepare to Samba at the 2019 Rio Carnival in Brazil with COLORS INFINITY Odyssey

    Prepare to Samba at the 2019 Rio Carnival in Brazil with COLORS INFINITY Odyssey

    MUMBAI: Stepping into 2019 with a promise to excite, engage and entertain, COLORS INFINITY announced the second edition of CI Odyssey, one of the India’s biggest travel contest. Giving consumers the opportunity to win a paid trip to the Rio Carnival in Brazil, the channel has now opened its window for aspiring gallivants to book a seat in this life-changing wanderlust–adventure.

    Last year’s campaign garnered immense success, where the winner – Purab Saxena won a chance to fulfill his dream of visiting Ushuaia, often considered as the ‘end of the world, beginning of everything’ in Tierra Del Fuego, Argentina.

    Thrilled at the announcement of CI Odyssey 2019, Sabrina D’Souza – Head of Marketing, English Entertainment, Viacom18, said, “Establishing its position as the go-to channel for the latest and best in English Entertainment, COLORS INFINITY has further embedded itself as a clutter-breaking brand to not only consumers but to the industry as well. Creating a rapport with our audience, we offer multiple avenues throughout the year for engagement and entertainment, that goes beyond conventional marketing. Yet again through CI Odyssey, COLORS INFINITY will fulfill the innate travel desires of one lucky winner, who will experience the vibrant Rio Carnival and explore the breathtaking sights of Brazil.”

    So, if you yearn for sun-soaked beaches, inimitable scenic locales of a city and the pulse of a bustling festival, follow these simple steps to participate;

    Step – 1: Log on to any of our official social media handles;

    Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ColorsInfinity/

    Twitter: https://twitter.com/colors_infinity

    Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/colorsinfinitytv/

    Step – 2: Answer as many questions as possible in the next four weeks with a new question everyday

    Step – 3: Don’t forget to put the contest hashtag #ToRioWithInfinity

    Step – 4: Pack your bags and prepare for RIO

  • Common man feels ignored by politicians: Ipsos Survey

    Common man feels ignored by politicians: Ipsos Survey

    New Delhi, Oct 01, 2018: Ipsos Survey shows that 58% Indians feel that the economy is partial to those with deep pockets – the rich and powerful. Further, 59% feel that traditional parties and politicians disregard the common man.

    The survey christened Beyond Populism was conducted online among adults aged under 65 in Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, India, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Poland, Russia, Spain, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Turkey and the United States.

    Parijat Chakraborty, Executive Director, Ipsos Public Affairs says, “The survey shows that the common man is feeling left out in the scheme of things. With the General Elections coming up in 2019, this insight can help political parties focus on the needs of the marginalized and the man on the street.”
    Interestingly, Indians are clear about what attributes they look for in their politicians. Majority of Indians polled (62%) prefer outspoken politicians who can speak their mind without worrying about the consequences; and more number of Indians (68%) like their leaders strong and those who can create their own path and are not hesitant in breaking the norms.

    At the same time, only half of Indians polled see risk in electing political parties or leaders with radical ideas for change, who have not been elected earlier. 2 in 5 would stick with political parties and leaders who have been in power before.

  • STB cos in India, China enhancing features, providing customised solutions, Technavio enlists top vendors

    STB cos in India, China enhancing features, providing customised solutions, Technavio enlists top vendors

    MUMBAI: The global STB market is characterised by intense competition as the market is saturated in developed countries. The market share of these players is declining because of the entry of new players. The STB companies are enhancing the features of STBs and providing customised solutions to retain their market share.

    Technavio, a technology research and advisory company, has enlisted the top five leading vendors in their recent global set-top box (STB) market report. This report also lists 45 other prominent vendors that are expected to impact the market during 2017–2021.

    There is a high demand for pay-per-channels used by customers who use gateways and multiscreen devices. The ongoing shift to the HD format contributes to the growth of the market. Digitisation in China, India, and Brazil contributes significantly to market growth. The ongoing shift from analogue to the digital platform in China and India has created the demand for HD STBs in these countries.

    Competitive vendor landscape: “The global STB market is characterised by intense competition as the market in developed is expected to be stagnant in future. The market is fragmented owing to the presence of a large number of small players. The entry of new players intensifies competition and reduces the profit margins of other vendors. The players are enhancing the features of STBs and providing customised solutions to retain their market share,” says Ujjwal Doshi, a lead consumer electronics research analyst from Technavio.

    The growth of the global STB market is driven by digitisation that has been taking place in developing countries, such as Argentina, Brazil, China, and India, since 2010.

    ARRIS International: ARRIS International offers STBs, digital video and IPTV distribution systems, broadband access infrastructure platforms, and associated data and voice equipment. The wide portfolio of the company offers end-to-end solutions that offer service providers a variety of choices to customize their approach to IP transition. The company focuses on expanding its product and solutions portfolio through organic development, partnerships, and acquisitions.

    Broadcom: Broadcom offers a range of consumer electronics products including STB, central office broadband access equipment, residential gateways, and stand-alone broadband access modems. Global service providers introduce new technologies and services in STBs such as HD content, transcoding, digital video recording, and increased networking capabilities.

    Pace: Pace provides technology solutions and caters to the subscription-based TV services providers and broadband industries. It offers a wide range of media servers, STB, gateways, software, optical transport and access control network solutions, and highly specialized services.

    Roku: Roku focuses on manufacturing streaming entertainment devices. The first product launched by the company was designed to secure movies from Netflix and feature them on TV with the help of the Internet. The streaming players can be connected directly to the user’s TV and grant access to movies, TV shows, games, music, and extra channels.

    Technicolor: Technicolor provides production, post-production, and distribution services to content writers, network service providers, and broadcasters. The company offers film processing, visual effects, and animation services along with the manufacture and distribution of digital video disks, Blu-ray disks, STB, and gateways.

    The emerging markets offer opportunities for growth to vendors as the developed countries have reached saturation, according to Technavio. The availability of affordable STBs fuels growth in the market.

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    TRAI workshop on interoperable STBs later this month

     

  • GRB Entertainment announced sales of it’s top 4 documentaries

    MUMBAI: GRB Entertainment announced sales of four of its top documentaries to broadcasters in Brazil, Japan and the U.K.

    Globosat Brazil renewed Remembering Whitney, a documentary featuring legendary singer Whitney Houston, just in time to celebrate the icon’s August 9thbirthday. This breathtaking one-hour special celebrates the legacy of the six-time Grammy winner, featuring “never-before-seen footage” of Whitney, including interviews with the pop icon, exclusive concerts, private home videos, and candid insights from her family, including her daughter, Bobbi Kristina Brown.

    Nippon Television Network in Japan acquired Michael Sam, a 65-minute doc spotlighting the life of Michael Sam, the first openly gay U.S. football player in the NFL. Cameras follow Sam along his brave journey – from a football player at the University of Missouri to the biggest professional sports league in America as he works to earn a spot on a NFL team.

    Sky UK acquired two docs: Confessions of a Superhero follows the lives of three mortal men and one woman who make their living working as superhero characters on the sidewalks of the infamous Hollywood Boulevard. This deeply personal view into the daily routines of these characters reveal their hardships, and triumphs, while they pursue and achieve their own kind of fame; and The Mona Lisa Myth, narrated by Morgan Freeman, is a lavish period docu-drama that takes viewers from Leonardo Da Vinci’s happy sojourn in the duchy of Milan to his struggling years in Florence, through the controversy surrounding his famous painting The Mona Lisa and finally, his retirement at the French royal court in Amboise.

    “GRB is well-known around the globe for its wide-ranging portfolio of factual programs and we are fortunate to also represent many top-notch documentaries. From a sports’ figure with a ground-breaking story to a great singer and her tragic life to a group of people chasing a Hollywood dream to the great artist Da Vinci, GRB has programs that transcend borders and language barriers,” said Michael Lolato, SVP of International Distribution, GRB Entertainment.