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Tag: KPMG

  • Girish Menon joins Jetsynthesys as chief strategy officer

    Girish Menon joins Jetsynthesys as chief strategy officer

    Mumbai: Jetsynthesys has appointed Girish Menon as chief strategy officer, according to his recent LinkedIn update.

    He was previously associated with KPMG as a partner for its media and entertainment practice. Jetsynthesys is an IT services and consulting company specialising in gaming, esports and entertainment domain.

    Menon is a professional with over 25 years of experience in mergers & acquisitions, strategy and consulting with a specialisation in media, digital, gaming & consumer internet domains.

    He has been associated with KPMG for 21 years out of which 14 years were spent in the deal advisory practice covering strategy and mergers and acquisitions (M&A) advisory. He has also had an entrepreneurial stint heading a film studio venture and also held the role of head strategy at Balaji Telefilms.

  • BCCI to onboard KPMG for IPL media rights tender

    BCCI to onboard KPMG for IPL media rights tender

    Mumbai: The Board of Control for Cricket in India’s (BCCI) governing council for the Indian Premier League (IPL) has on boarded accounting firm KPMG to advise on the bid process for the IPL Media Rights Tender for the 2023-27 cycle. According to media reports, an official announcement could be made on Monday.

    The IPL governing council is set to hold a crucial meeting to decide the IPL 2022 auction dates and venue, CVC ownership of Ahmedabad franchise, IPL Media Rights Tender.  The Board will also discuss IPL 2022 Plan B amidst a potential third wave of Covid-19, and decide a backup plan for hosting the 15th edition of the IPL.

    The governing council has announced on 28 September that the IPL Media Rights Tender for 2023-27 cycle will be released immediately after the appointment of two new IPL teams which was announced on 25 October.

  • TV Today Network expands digital offering with news app ‘TAK’

    TV Today Network expands digital offering with news app ‘TAK’

    Mumbai: Expanding its presence in the digital video space, TV Today Network has launched the TAK news app on the Google Play Store on Android and App Store on iOS.

    The app will feature content in Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati. and Punjabi, and offer personalised content to users across 18 brand channels under categories such as news, crime, as well as regional. According to the network, a separate content studio will create exclusively digital video content for the TAK news app.

    The app also has a short video feature called ‘Phatak’ to showcase shareable 30-second video bytes of the latest news stories. The feature is unique to the TAK app and will not be accessible on their YouTube channels. The network currently has a cumulative subscriber base of 45 million on its YouTube channels that garner nine billion video views annually. Users can access the content on the app without logging in as it tracks the device ID to create a profile of the user. The more content the user watches on the platform, the more customised his/her feed will become over time.

    “Through this effort, we are trying to bring digital audiences to our own destination,” said TV Today Network chief operating officer (Tak channels) Vivek Gaur. “We believe there has to be a clear differentiation on what we do on our social platforms versus our presence on the TAK app. A differentiated content and engagement strategy is what will drive people to our platform.”

    The ‘TAK’ app logo which used to look similar to Hindi news channel Aaj Tak was relaunched under the new umbrella to come across a unique digital offering. There is a lot of effort going into our content to make it relevant and give it longer shelf life,” said TV Today Network managing editor – Tak channels Milind Khandekar. This means we’re not just reporting the news but also explaining it. Our big differentiator is the ‘Phatak’ which is news in 30 seconds. These are well shot and well-produced videos which are not available on social media.”

    Creativeland Asia’s design division CLA Design Lab created the master brand design and overall design architecture for the brand. “It is always exciting to build a brand from the ground up,” said Creativeland Asia founder and chairman Sajan Raj Kurup. “I personally worked closely with Vivek and his wonderful team on the conceptualisation and direction of this brand. After months of extensive collaborations between our design, strategy, communications and production team, I am excited to see the brand out there ready to take off.”

    The recommendations under the ‘Phatak’ short video feature will be decided on the basis of recency and cohort-based recommendation much like other players in the short video space. When a user visits the website, he or she will only see new stories populating the page as content that has already been watched is deprioritised to keep the user experience on the app fresh.

    TV Today Network has decided to go outside the Google Ad network and monetise the users on the TAK news app through bespoke advertising solutions to clients. Gaur noted, “If you show ads in a mundane and intrusive manner then people will think you’re like everyone else. Our advantage to advertisers is that we can offer them sharper audience segmentation based on audience cohorts like region, language. and preferences. That will allow us to scale and achieve profitability.”

    According to a report by KPMG, digital video ad spend is expected to grow at 39 per cent CAGR between 2019-24. It accounts for a 30 per cent share of the total digital advertising spends and is expected to increase its share to 50 per cent by 2024.

  • Indian animation 2019 – the year of highs

    Indian animation 2019 – the year of highs

    2019 was a great year for the Indian animation industry. What a wonderful culmination of a decade which saw the complete transformation of the industry. Today we are at the cusp of a creative revolution. There has been a proliferation of media platforms and content consumers are spoilt for choice. The resulting increase in supply has peculiarly resulted in increased demand and consumption, thereby giving rise to more such platforms and more opportunities all round. A recent report by KPMG pegs that the Indian animation and VFX industry, which now stands at $1.23 billion, will more than double in size to $2.6 billion in the next 5 years.

    2019 was a year of highs for the industry. After being declared the most popular Indian television show in the world by Google, Motu Patlu, Cosmos-Maya’s flagship IP, was immortalized in wax at the Madame Tussauds museum. The year also saw the launch of Cosmos-Maya’s Bapu, the first-ever IP in this space based on Mahatma Gandhi, commemorating his 150th birth anniversary. Green Gold Animation’s Mighty Little Bheem became the second most-watched original series globally on Netflix in the Kids’ category. When a homegrown franchise which is with a pay-TV broadcaster like Turner takes the original route with Netflix, you know that winds of change are blowing.

    In addition to the above, there were giant leaps in terms of the evolution of storytelling, where major franchises are being planned. Cosmos-Maya’s Motu Patlu spinoffs, Inspector Chingum and Guddu were launched on Disney and Amazon Prime Video respectively. Both these IPs followed a ‘Digital First’ approach where it was envisaged that these first air on a major OTT to propagate the IP, and then on Pay TV to increase eyeballs manifold. Also, in the normal run of things, where OTTs spend big to get original and exclusive content on board, they are now preferring to air content which is already running on a different platform, thereby leveraging the placement of an IP.

    The current digital scenario is very promising. WowKidz, Cosmos-Maya’s YouTube network, has been a big benefactor of this digital growth. WowKidz today has more than 35 million subscribers and 16 billion views. An average of 75,000 new subscribers are added daily to the mix. The reason is simple. Close to 650 million Indians have access to internet services today. Smartphone penetration has reached the 500 million mark. When we look at the breakup of India’s animation production pie, 53.5 per cent is digital’s share. This is driven by content viewing on mobile phones in a country which has mostly single TV households. TV has 30 per cent share in India’s animation production pie but still has the maximum reach.

    For content creators like Cosmos-Maya, both platforms are equally lucrative. If the brand is big, Digital and Pay TV can end up being similar partners. A situation very unique to India, today TV and OTT are both growing in the country and there is a beautiful co-existence of both. Animation is transcending boundaries in this regard.

    Speaking of transcending boundaries, 2019 also heralded a new trend. Cosmos-Maya’s ‘Selfie With Bajrangi’, one of the highest-rated and most popular shows has made its way into a general entertainment channel through Star Plus, which from an industry perspective is a welcome change because animation has always been an under-indexed category with low ad rates, in spite of its GRP contribution being in line with some of the most popular categories. The year also marked the ‘Bring in Bollywood!’ era. IP’s like Golmaal Jr with Nickelodeon Sonic, Fukrey Boyzzz with Discovery Kids capitalized on the popularity of the Golmaal and Fukrey franchises.

    Another important trend which Sony Yay! started off is the airing of their content in 7 regional languages. Speaking here from a more holistic perspective, though OTT players like Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Hotstar, Zee5, Alt Balaji among others, are producing more and more regional content to tap on as many users as possible in the country, TV still dominates here. To add more perspective, OTT is yet to penetrate rural India, which has always been a big traditional media market. TV is a god-sent for rural folk who make up around 70 per cent of Indian population.
    On the global front, Indian animation content reached almost all corners of the world. To quote an example, our non-dialogue show Eena Meena Deeka is aired in more than 50 countries today.

    International co-productions are becoming big and we have captured newer frontiers in this regard as an industry. There were times when only a bunch of people who would attend international markets from India to discuss co-production possibilities. Today, dedicated Indian delegations attend these markets. Hence, the scope has increased exponentially. 4 of Cosmos-Maya’s co-produced international IPs have been ‘glocalised’ and will air in Hindi on a major broadcaster. To quote an example, Berry Bees, one of our biggest co-productions, an all-girl IP, with Atlantyca, SRL and Telegael will air as The Dabangg Girls in India, thereby giving it an Indian soul and yet retaining its original charm.

    2019 also saw the $ 2 billion giant in the form of the Indian ed-tech industry being given a push by animation. A major need gap exists between the education and entertainment industries and we identified it. Cosmos-Maya has the animation mandate of the ed-tech unicorn BYJU’s, which has also tied up with Disney. Entertainment to empowerment, through the power of education, is a mass phenomenon.

    While this decade for Indian animation belonged to Entertainment, the next ten years will belong to education.

    (The author is CEO, Cosmos Maya. The views expressed are his own and Indiantelevision.com may not subscribe to them.)

  • Flipkart’s entry into video streaming space more of an e-commerce play

    Flipkart’s entry into video streaming space more of an e-commerce play

    MUMBAI: Ever since Flipkart announced its entry into India’s booming video streaming space, it’s been the talk of the town. The Walmart-owned e-commerce platform will open it up for Flipkart Plus loyalty program members in a fashion similar to Amazon Prime Video.

    The upcoming video streaming service will enter the market in September, before the festive season of Diwali. The difference between the two is that Flipkart’s service is entirely free for Plus members while the other entails a cost of Rs 129 a month. Another difference is that Flipkart is currently licensing content while Amazon invests in its own. However, industry experts are divided on the effectiveness of the e-commerce player’s plan to enter the market with commissioned content.

    “Walmart acquired Vudu in 2010 and has been trying to scale it with an ad-funded model rather than originals/subscription. For India, if they have decided to do aggregated content, I think it is because they are testing waters initially. Walmart as a new video OTT player is a good step for consumers and the industry. I think once they taste the success they will start investing in local content or originals as well. Walmart is also as deep-pocketed as Netflix or Amazon,” Eros International group chief marketing officer Manav Sethi commented on the strategy.

    On the other hand, Elara Capital vice president research Karan Taurani is of the view that until and unless OTT players make an investment into original content, no massive changes can be expected since it is a very crowded space with more than 30 players. Reports say that Flipkart has not ruled out the possibility of launching originals.

    Despite its different stance, experts are sure that it will definitely boost Flipkart’s business. One media analyst opined that the model is similar to Amazon Prime Video where content is one offering in Flipkart’s loyalty programme. However, instead of targetting a million subscribers, Flipkart’s aim is to get more consumers to spend money on its platform.

    “The play they want to have is really similar to Amazon than Netflix. The idea is to hook the audiences to its content to study consumer behaviour for better targetting,” said another analyst from an auditing firm who wished to remain unnamed. He added that if it can get people to linger on the platform and increase the number of services provided to them, Flipkart will be in a better position to target them efficiently. But he added that the quality of content and price point will also matter.

    “In the past 10 years, our vision and ethos have been to create India-specific tech solutions. What we are rolling out when it comes to addressing the needs of the next 200 million users in our country, is taking forward those founding principles of access and affordability,” Flipkart group CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy commented as per media reports.

    Taurani added that Flipkart can tie up with multiple OTT platforms which will help it boost its e-commerce segment. As Amazon Prime is restricted to have in-house content, this can be an advantage.

    Moreover, as per Taurani, the OTT platforms or broadcasters providing content to Flipkart will also gain from the deal as this will be an additional revenue stream for them apart from their current tie-up with the telcos. Hence, it’s a win-win situation for both but it will obviously help Flipkart’s e-commerce play more.

    It’s yet to be ascertained how this move will create a dent in the market. “It will increase the competition. The consumers who were having 30-plus options will have one more big option to consume. Depending on how Walmart packages and prices it, I think it should see significant consumption uptake,” Sethi added.

    According to a recent report from KPMG, the digital segment of the media and entertainment industry in India contributed Rs 173 billion in revenue in FY19 with digital advertising and subscription from OTT platforms contributing significantly. The potential of the market is noticeable as the report predicts 580 million OTT consumers by FY24 will be spending more than 30 minutes on online video platforms each day.

  • India’s M&E industry likely to reach INR 3.07 trillion by FY24

    India’s M&E industry likely to reach INR 3.07 trillion by FY24

    MUMBAI: KPMG in India today launched the 11th edition of its Media and Entertainment (M&E) report, titled ‘India’s Digital Future: Mass of Niches’ that examines the evolution of India’s digital demography to 2030. It also covers the industry’s performance across segments, along with the key underlying themes and growth drivers.

    The M&E industry in India posted a solid growth of 13 per cent during FY19 to reach a size of INR 1631 billion with a CAGR of 11.5 per cent over FY15-FY19. Digital has been a recurring theme across all segments of M&E causing disruption in TV and print and fuelling growth in digital advertising and gaming. The digital market is poised to become the second largest segment in India after TV, and also attract the maximum advertising spend by FY22. There are favourable factors for both digital access (smartphone penetration and low data costs) and content supply (investments in original and regional digital content), which together will continue to drive up online consumption. The investments in regional content is an outcome of the growing importance of regional language markets in India, which is another key theme of the report this year. With the digital migration of English speaking audiences almost complete, most new users coming online – and there are expected to be 500mn of them by 2030 – will access the internet in a local language. 

    The 500mn new users by 2030 present digital businesses with an unparalleled market opportunity but not without some complexity. Segmentation will become important as the market evolves into a ‘mass of niches’. The report examines major consumer archetypes that together provide a framework to better understand the socio-economic profile as well as media and entertainment consumption patterns and preferences of the projected billion internet users.

    The greater monetisation of emerging digital business models, and a favourable regulatory and operating environment should continue to support the growth of the M&E industry in India, which is expected to post a CAGR of 13.5 per cent over FY19-FY24, to reach a size of INR3.07 trillion.

    Girish Menon, Partner & Head Media & Entertainment, KPMG in India, said, “The theme of the report this year is India’s digital future – and although the term ‘digital revolution’ has become somewhat of a cliché, there can be no other way to explain the extent of digital integration in our lives today. With no major constraining factors, digital is expected to be a dominant force going forward and in FY23, it is likely to be the second largest segment after TV and attract the highest marketing spend among all media formats. In 2019, as digital behaviour evolves, there seems to be a growing consensus that in the future, subscription models will have a greater role in monetisation of digital platforms. Further, evolving technologies are also presenting opportunities for companies in the media and entertainment industry to achieve greater operational efficiencies.”

    Girish added, “In the coming years, it will be hard to ignore the pessimistic signals emerging from global economies but they will not have long term impacts on the industry and are unlikely to alter the strong fundamentals and momentum of M&E consumption, especially digital, in India. As an industry, we will remain upbeat on the prospects for both.”

    Satya Easwaran, Partner & Head Technology, Media and Telecom, KPMG in India, said, “By 2030, we estimate that there will be a billion people in India who are connected to the internet. Our initial hypothesis is that the user will primarily be a non-English speaking, mobile phone user, from a developed rural area/ non-metro urban setting who is increasingly willing to pay for content online. But why is the profile of India’s digital demography relevant? The digital disruption has forced a pivot of business models in media and entertainment from an erstwhile B2B2C model to a D2C one. And therefore, segmentation and demographic, psychographic and behavioral profiling will all become increasingly important, as they have historically been in other consumer businesses.”

    Media and Entertainment: Segment Highlights

    Digital – Crossing the Rubicon:

    The Digital segment continue to be strong enabling factors encouraging greater consumption of content on the internet in India. It is reflected in the growth in broadband internet subscribers at 37% for FY 2019, which beats overall growth in internet users at 29%. Today, Internet access is also more equitable and the growth in rural users is almost three times that of the urban.

    TV – Waking to a new reality

    The television segment had a good year for the first three quarters of FY2019, but the challenges in implementation of the New Tariff Order (NTO) and the resultant uncertainty around viewership and subscription renewals affected both the advertisement and subscription revenues in the last three months of FY19. The market size this year includes advertisement revenues of INR251 billion and subscription revenues of INR463 billion.

    Print – The oldest pillar still standing

    The print media industry survived ups and downs over a period of FY2018 witnessing a rough patch due to disruptions caused by the implementation of the new GST regime, RERA regulations and demonetisation with the lowest growth in a decade at 3.4 per cent. Globally the print industry is on the decline with newspaper’s share of global advertising spend falling from 37 per cent in CY08 to 12 per cent in CY18, the Indian print industry continued to buck trends and grew at 5.6 per cent CAGR from FY15 to FY193.

    Films – Content triumphs

    It was a groundbreaking year at the Indian box office, which delivered its best box office performance in the past decade as content took centre-stage with movies of diverse budgets succeeding at the box office. A key ongoing change has been the growing contribution of digital rights, which has grown by 30 per cent in FY19 in line with the previous year driven by heavy demand by OTT platforms who consider new movies as a key differentiator. In FY2019, domestic box office collections grew by 14.7 per cent.

    Gaming, Animation, VFX and postproduction – Turning imagination into reality

    Digital revolution has been the primary contributor to the remarkable growth of online gaming in India. The estimates of the gaming industry in India indicates a growth of 26.4% in the CAGR of 2015 – 2019.

    Out of home – Embracing digital

    OOH (Out of Home) is a versatile advertising medium on account of various advantages it offers over other forms of media such as high coverage in terms of area, better brand positioning, given the larger size of image and higher target audience reach of almost 80 per cent. The OOH industry has witnessed close to 11 per cent CAGR over the last five years, growing from INR 20 billion in FY14 to INR 34 billion in FY19.

    Radio & Music – Waiting to be heard

    The industry saw impetus coming from the increase in spends due to elections. While the real estate sector continued to face slowdown, the sector spends on radio continued to liquidate existing inventory. The growth during the FY19 has remained weak at of 6.17 per cent.

    KEY THEMES OF 2019

    NTO – A paradigm shift: Post the new regulatory framework for broadcasting and cable services introduced by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), viewership is likely to be concentrated across fewer channels aiding large broadcasters and channels with appealing content. They stand to benefit from higher subscription revenue as well as gain greater pricing power. Further, some of the large broadcasters have also taken a strategic call to move the Free-to-air (FTA) variants of their popular General Entertainment Channels to the Pay regime, with a view to ensure that subscribers pay for the content they wish to watch.

    Regional markets – Moving into the limelight: In FY19, the growth in advertising revenue for regional channels has been around 16-17 per cent. The large audience size combined with their preference to consume content in their preferred language has led to media platforms expanding their portfolios to offer dedicated regional language content. Consumers are also spending 35-43 per cent of time on regional videos on digital platforms.

    Skill development – The learning imperative: Owing to the digital disruption, the world of media and entertainment is changing with a new composition in the workforce. The India Inc’s capability to ideate, innovate and execute eventually leads to disproportionate value creation for the enterprise. This shift requires constant upscaling and upskilling of the workforce. The traditional job roles have either completely changed or have totally ceased to exist with a decrease of 8 per cent in online media, 9 per cent in print and 5 per cent in broadcast media.

    Digital privacy and content – Bridging the monetisation gap: In today’s marketplace, customised environment and recommendations are the norm and it provides organisations an edge over their competition. They are using Content Delivery Networks (CDN) to speed up content delivery on websites with high traffic based on location. In order to provide such services, media companies are now monetizing by collecting huge amounts of data to create customer profiles in a new and unique way.

    5G – Technology trends in M&E sector: 5G will increase media usage immensely. The revenue forecast over the next decade (2019-2028) is pegged at approximately USD 3 trillion which the M&E companies will be vying for and the revenue opportunity enabled by 5G networks will be approximately USD1.3 trillion. The year 2025 is expected to be the year when the industry will reach critical mass wherein 57 per cent of global wireless media revenues will be generated on the back of superfast 5G networks and devices. One of the key metrics of 5G performance is latency and since the technology promises latency of <1Ms live streaming and large downloads will happen at supersonic speeds.

  • Indian online gaming revenue to touch Rs 119 bn by 2023

    Indian online gaming revenue to touch Rs 119 bn by 2023

    MUMBAI: The rapid growth in digital infrastructure has led to a supercharged growth of online gaming from Rs 20 billion in FY14 to Rs 44 billion in FY18. The industry is expected to grow by 22 per cent Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) by FY23 and reach Rs 119 billion, as per a KPMG Report.

    The Indian Federation of Sports Gaming (IFSG), and KPMG India launched a report on the ‘The Evolving Landscape of Sports Gaming in India’ at its second event – GamePlan 2019. The report provides an overview of the online gaming industry with a focus on fantasy sports and eSports.

    GamePlan 2019 had a session on ‘Future of online sports entertainment in India’ and the panellists were Google India country director sales Vikas Agnihotri, KPMG India partner and head-media and entertainment Girish Menon, Dream11 CEO and co-founder Harsh Jain, Wavemaker CEO south Asia Karthik Sharma and moderated by sports industry expert Gaurav Kapoor.

    Experts believed that the level of engagement is very high when it comes to sports gaming in India. “We have seen 250 million people interact with sports last year and it is expected to reach 350 million this year. During the IPL, the search rates go up by 80 per cent as compared to the previous quarter,” Agnihotri said.

    KPMG conducted a survey on 336 fantasy sports users to understand their preferences and playing patterns. For around 50 per cent of the respondents, the ‘ability to manage teams virtually’, ‘remain connected with the sport’ and ‘utilisation of sports knowledge’ was important motivators for engagement. Out of those 336 users, 71 per cent of the respondents played fantasy cricket followed by 54 per cent playing football. The non-cricket sports leagues in India are also witnessing increasing traction.

    Commenting on the occasion, IFSG president John Loffhagen said, “With the rapidly growing digital infrastructure and emergence of new sports leagues, the Indian online sports gaming industry is witnessing a boom which shows no sign of slowing down. Exponential growth provides users with easy access to a vast variety of sports gaming apps, formats and genres. This could lead to potential confusion and misjudgement among players in choosing the right platform to engage with their favourite sport.

    Due to the growth of digital infrastructure and the emergence of new sports leagues, fantasy sports is witnessing increasing traction in India. The number of fantasy sports operators spiked from 10 in 2016 to 70 in 2018.

    Talking about the engagement of users on Dream11, Jain said, “We had around 95 per cent of our users playing fantasy cricket three years ago and it has come down to 85 per cent. Indian diaspora wants to consume more sports apart from just cricket. Cricket is still growing but other sports are also witnessing exponential growth.”

    “One of the things all of us have to be aware of is that there is still a huge potential keeping the business model, strategy and the approach in mind. When it comes to sports gaming on monetisation, one of the advantages is the ability to build an ecosystem. Typically any online gaming product is largely free or pay and freemium sometimes. The ability to create an ecosystem is because of the high level of user engagement that exists. Those engagements are at a fairly high level of loyalty to their specific club or sport,” Menon said.

    Jain believes that in the next three years cricket engagement will go down to 65 per cent and the remaining part will be from the non-cricketing sports. “The whole industry is waiting for Google to open Google ads for fantasy sports,” he added.

    Online gaming in India is seeing increased traction due to the growth of digital infrastructure, with fantasy sports emerging as an important segment in this space. “With the number of fantasy sports operators growing rapidly and the number of users on fantasy sports platforms expected to cross 100 million by 2020, this segment has the potential to spawn a whole ecosystem around it, and could help deepen user engagement with their favourite sports,” Menon concluded.

  • 75% Indians trust tech companies with their personal data

    75% Indians trust tech companies with their personal data

    MUMBAI: The million dollar question today for any brand or company is ‘How can you decipher your customer?’ In its second edition of Me, My Life, My Wallet, KPMG explored the multidimensional customer, what truly drives behaviour and choices and how this is set to change as the customers of tomorrow emerge.

    The research explores the 5 Mys – my motivation, my attention, my connection, my watch and my wallet. It is the way in which the organisation’s clients should be viewing its customers.

    Indians, it seems, give away data to get a better experience while respondents of most of the developed countries aren’t really interested to trade data about themselves. 75 per cent of the consumers trust the technology companies for the data whereas they don’t trust the government (51 per cent) which is a high figure compared to the global average (37 per cent).

    87 per cent people would trade their personal data to a company for better customer experience and personalisation, better products and services and better security. The attention of 58 per cent people is grabbed by brands that offer deals or discounts on social media.

    KPMG in India partner and head, consumer markets Harsha Razdan said, “Consumers are anxious, with younger generations feeling it the most. They like new technology but are concerned about handing over personal data, and what that could mean for their privacy and security. Our research demonstrates that organisations should be aware of the heightened awareness people have about the value of their data; they want to feel that they are in control at every stage of the business relationship.”

    Among the sectors seeing the toughest competition is digital entertainment, with more than 20 players vying for attention. Telecom provider Reliance Jio, with its global and local tie-ups, has changed the way in which the populace uses its phones. Local players with rights to Hindi blockbusters and IPL cricket tournament that transfixes the nation's attention in April and May are going up against Netflix and other major video streaming services.

    There are many other sectors where services have yet to scratch the surface of the vast potential, such as healthcare and education. Globally, 66 per cent of consumers are keen on technology. The interest in technology leaps in the fast-growing economies of China (81 per cent), and India (83 per cent). 47 per cent of the consumers in India are anxious about unauthorised tracking of their online habits by companies, governments and criminals.

    “With digital services moving from the big cities into India’s heartland, the type of growth that we will witness will change. The consumer in a second-tier city will be very different to the one in Mumbai and the rural consumer is different again. This makes the Indian market yet more complex,” said KPMG in India partner and head, customer and channel, management consulting Abhijeet Ranade.

    When the wallet comes into picture, 24 per cent indicated that advertising influences their buying/spending decisions, which is the highest out of all eight markets.

    “Many companies haven’t yet fully grasped the concerns consumers have about sharing their data, or how this could affect consumer loyalty. Yet more and more businesses are looking to monetise the data they hold – whether that’s what we put in our shopping basket, how many times a week we exercise, or what we choose to watch. Consumers are more aware of the value of their data, and businesses need to be responding to this new, tech-driven, data-savvy type of customer,” Razdan added.

    The research across eight global markets provides an in-depth look at the STEP (social, technological, economic and political) events influencing consumers of today and tomorrow. The survey included nearly 25,000 consumers across Brazil, Canada, China, France, India, the UAE, The UK and the US. Out of the 25,000 consumers, 3000 participated in India between the age group of 25-40.

    KPMG in India chairman and CEO Arun M Kumar said, “The Indian consumer is difficult to understand, and as the online revolution progresses beyond the big cities and starts gaining momentum in the country’s heartland, they are getting more complicated still. The rewards for companies who take time to learn, though, are substantial.”

    The research focused on six key themes of critical importance to organisations and institutions around the world, namely; trust, data, wealth and retirement, generational surfing, the customer of the future and the B2B customer.

    Ranade said, “The idea and concept that the physical world will get replaced completely by the digital channel, that’s not happening and it’s not happening for quite some time.”

  • Airtel partners Flipkart, MakeMyTrip, Netflix to counter Jio

    Airtel partners Flipkart, MakeMyTrip, Netflix to counter Jio

    MUMBAI: Indian global telecommunications company Bharti Airtel is teaming up with Flipkart, MakeMyTrip and Netflix to provide customised offers for its consumers, in a bid to compete with Reliance Jio.

    Reliance Jio, having experienced a huge growth over time, used the same strategy to attract customers. Airtel will also attempt to expand itself into a digital platform to attract more customers.

    According to a report by The Economic Times, the offer will be harboured under the #AirtelThanks privilege membership programme. Subscribers who contribute a monthly revenue of over Rs 100 on an average can enjoy the benefits of the offer. On the principle, higher the recharge, bigger the offer value.

    Flipkart will offer cash backs in the form of coupon recharges on buying a smartphone from the ecommerce platform.

    The idea is to make sure a subscriber stays with the firm. “We studied telcos across the globe including T Mobile and Telstra for this,” said Bharti Airtel CMO Vani Venkatesh.

    Speaking to ET, Jaideep Ghosh, partner at consultancy firm KPMG explained how Reliance Jio’s services have demanded other telcos to rise a step up further. Explaining that, he said, “In the currently competitive landscape, traditional sources of plain vanilla telecom services and data services are facing intense pressure and telcos need to branch out into other services, Carriers need to get into partnerships to achieve this, which is crucial to their future growth.”

    Concluding this, Sameer Batra, CEO – content and apps, at Bharti Airtel said, “The more you are invested in the brand, the higher differentiated products and more options thrown to you”.

  • Living Foodz sees 25% growth in advertiser response

    Living Foodz sees 25% growth in advertiser response

    MUMBAI: After Aparna Bhosle’s elevation in the Zee Entertainment Enterprise Ltd (Zeel) from the premium English cluster head to now being the business head of Zee TV’s Hindi GEC channel, Shaurya Mehta along with handling the lifestyle genre, Living Foodz (LF), is also given the additional responsibility of donning the hat of the premium English cluster– Zee Cafe, &flix and &prive.

    Talking about the lifestyle channel that launched in 2015, LF COO Shaurya Mehta said that since the start, the channel’s only focus was to offer original content to the Indian audiences and being true to its factor, it has been the cornerstone to its success.

    Despite the disruptive elements that the lifestyle genre witnessed in the form of demonetisation and GST, it didn’t affect LF which took two years to break even. “We broke even a while back. It took less than two years to break even,” he said. According to him, the genre within these 2-3 years has grown 10-15 per cent y-o-y and the channel claims to have grown in excess to the growth of the overall space.

    Not only this, as far as advertisers’ response on the channel is concerned, it claims to have witnessed a healthy growth rate in excess of 25 per cent y-o-y. Also, whether or not the ad rates of the genre increased, Mehta said that the channel has already increased its ad rates. “The ad rates have already increased and over these past three years, we have consistently seen our ERs growing. LF is more on the premium side now from a viewer and advertisers perspective and we enjoy a much healthy ERs than our competition.”

    When it comes to adex that declined in FY18, according to the KPMG report 2018, the lifestyle genre observed 1.3 per cent adex in FY17 and 1.2 per cent in FY18. “We at LF have seen great growth within these 2-3 years. The genre stayed a little stagnant from the ad sales perspective and going forward this would improve and there will be relatively steadier phase over the coming years.”

    Considering the BARC data, LF has been ruling the charts. Mehta said that the channel continues to lead the market share in terms of viewership with a healthy margin in a genre which is already cluttered. “With the channels that have been around for almost a decade especially some leaders in the market like Discovery and others and to go up against them and draw us a span of viewership shares is quite a big thing.”

    The network has plans to launch 6-8 shows this month and many more in the coming month with a mix of both original and acquired shows. The channel garners most of the viewership during the daytime, between 1-7 pm depending on the shows that could vary. Several shows were launched on 3 October, slotted for the typical prime time of 9 pm.   

    LF provides just local content for the viewers buy other players offer a mix of syndicated and local content. Mehta said, “We have seen much of our competitors also adopting our strategy where instead of airing syndicated content, they are also airing a mix of original shows. So as the overall content strategy, competition will have a mix of both syndicated and original content and in case of LF, original shows remain our main pillar.”

    He added that as per the consumers’ choices, there is an appetite for syndicated content as well. There is a room for both local and syndicated content where there are people in the market who want to consume the content from all around the world.

    Mehta said that considering the infotainment and lifestyle genres together, lifestyle has seen growth from the perspective of the accretion value of the viewers that is known in India. According to him the outlook remains positive and the viewership base will continue to grow. “We have seen digital as a medium growing tremendously in this genre and competing with TV viewership. So from that perspective as well, LF has a strong strategy for our digital footprint also playing an important role for growth in the group and LF as a brand. We have been investing our digital platform as well since last year and we continue to do so. We bring the shows that are available on TV and we also do some originals to publish on our livingfoodz.com. We do realise that in order to build the story over the next 5 years, our digital footprint will also play an important role,” he said.

    A Tamil feed was also to be added this year for which he said, “The Tamil feed is still in progress. We want to ensure when we are completely ready to announce. We are looking at all the possibilities.”