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Tag: Sidharth Kedia

  • Reliance Jio appoints Sidharth Kedia appointed as SVP & head of JioGames

    Reliance Jio appoints Sidharth Kedia appointed as SVP & head of JioGames

    Mumbai: Reliance Jio has appointed Nodwin Gaming’s ex-CEO Sidharth Kedia, as senior vice president and head of JioGames. This strategic move is intended to expand JioGames’ business operations. Kedia, who started his new role in June, expressed his excitement about rejoining Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) after nearly ten years.

    “A decade later, I feel pretty stoked to be called back in the RIL family and be entrusted with the opportunity to scale JioGames and build a gaming behemoth that India awaits,” Kedia stated.

    Kedia has a diverse professional background. He previously held various positions within the Reliance Group, including executive roles at Viacom18 and Network18. At Viacom18, he served as executive vice president and head of strategy, M&A, data science, and eSports for almost three years. At Network18, he was CEO-digital (non-news) and managed corporate strategy for almost two years.

    Kedia is optimistic about the growth potential of JioGames, especially within the expanding digital landscape of India. He envisions transforming JioGames into a major player in the gaming industry by capitalizing on the strong digital infrastructure that Jio has built.

  • Brands actively reaching out for partnerships since Covid2019: NODWIN’s Sidharth Kedia

    Brands actively reaching out for partnerships since Covid2019: NODWIN’s Sidharth Kedia

    NEW DELHI: The esports ecosystem might witness a slump of 15-20 per cent post-covid, but the numbers will still be 200 per cent higher than the pre-Covid2019 times, NODWIN Gaming group CEO Sidharth Kedia told Indiantelevision.com. The five-year-old gaming platform is one of the largest esports companies in India and is popular for pioneering several cutting-edge technology innovations in e-sports broadcasting. 

    Kedia shares that the esports ecosystem witnessed a growth of about 300 per cent during the past quarter. “If I talk about NODWIN, our property India Premiership saw 3000 people registering for the event in the summer of 2019. This year, the number was 57,000. And going by the early indication shared by our streaming partner Disney+ Hotstar, the viewership rose by three times from the last season,” he highlights. 

    Addressing the speculations about the expected dip post Covid2019, he notes, “If we look at the rise of e-wallets and digital payments during demonetisation and the subsequent dip in their popularity once the situation settled, we noticed that the users still remain on the higher end of the pre-demonetisation times. Same is with esports. Yes, we may expect a 15-20 per cent dip in numbers but it will be after a 300 per cent growth.” 

    Not just the number of users, the interest of brands has also increased in the e-sports category, given the magnanimous popularity it's enjoying. 

    “Brands have definitely gained interest in esports. Earlier, we used to spend months trying to get in touch with brands and striking partnerships. But in the past three months, I have got a call from 37 new clients, asking me how they can invest in esports,” shares Kedia. 

    “Yes, the marketing budgets are low these days; if a brand used to spend Rs 100 on marketing earlier, it is just spending Rs 20-25 now. But, while I was getting only three per cent earlier, now, the brands will be sparing 30-35 per cent for us from those 25 rupees. All the brands who want to reposition themselves or are trying to get the attention of the youth are investing in esports and it will continue even after Covid2019,” he elaborates. 

    Kedia also put the spotlight on the blurring lines between India and Bharat when it comes to e-sports in today’s time, attributing the growth in popularity of the platforms to increasing mobile penetration. 

    “Bharat population is much bigger on mobile platforms. Going by Google trends, if you search top ten cities using PubG mobile, most of them will be tier 2 and tier 3 cities. Even for us, when we streamed our latest tournament on YouTube, which reached around 40 million people, the top two languages in which users accessed the content were Hindi and Tamil. We got three million views on our Hindi streams for PMPL and the views for English were less than 10 per cent of it,” Kedia quipped. 

    To keep this momentum of growth going, Kedia and his team are investing highly in technology like distributed broadcast architecture using cloud technology. “We will continue to experiment with AR, VR, and mixed reality. Another important goal for us is to minimise the number of people in our offices and we are working towards that.”

    Kedia believes that esports has a great future in India and is also planning to invest in talent management going ahead. To popularise NODWIN, he is actively indulging in brand partnerships, sponsorships, and attending various events and webinars to reach out to potential trade partners. 

  • NODWIN Gaming appoints Lalita Nayak as new head of sales and marketing

    NODWIN Gaming appoints Lalita Nayak as new head of sales and marketing

    MUMBAI: NODWIN Gaming has appointed Lalita Narayan Nayak as its new head, sales and marketing. In her new role, Nayak will be in charge of implementing and managing sales and marketing activities. She will identify new market opportunities and define actions required to bring a new dynamic to the company and help the NODWIN Gaming arena grow further. 

    Nayak's extensive 19-year career in marketing has seen her take on several leadership roles in business planning and development as well as brand management and strategic alliances. She has a reputed track record of building strong teams and developing talent.

    “We are delighted to have Lalita on board. We are confident that her vast experience in sales and marketing will help us push the envelope to pioneer new and innovative marketing strategies that will put NODWIN Gaming on the global esports map. As a team, we are confident we will be able to steer the company in the right direction and meet the goals we have set in our markets in India, the Middle East and South Africa,” said NODWIN Gaming CEO Sidharth Kedia.

    Nayak began her career with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) where she worked closely with Industry captains and various governments on several Industry related issues. Prior to Joining NODWIN Gaming, Lalita worked with TV18 for over five years, leading the marketing team for all it its channels in the English as well as Regional language space. She has also worked with the Times group developing and executing product strategy and was one of the founders of Times Grey Cell.  

  • Viacom18 to have 360-degree play for e-sports: Sidharth Kedia

    Viacom18 to have 360-degree play for e-sports: Sidharth Kedia

    MUMBAI: Esports is at an early stage of development in the country. It is expected to be the future of entertainment and holds an upcoming opportunity for brands and media to promote, reach digital natives and develop new content concepts.

    Viacom18 EVP & head corp strategy, M&A, data science and deputy chief commercial officer Sidharth Kedia said, “While e-sports is a youth phenomenon today, its growth pattern will reflect the trajectory it has followed in other parts of the world and we will see people starting to play e-sports at a much younger age group. Other OTT players just have e-sports content but we are doing a whole 360-degree play including live, TV and digital.”

    Nodwin Gaming MD Akshat Rathee said, “In about a five-year time, we will be close to the music industry and definitely bigger than all the other industries including comedy.”

    Kedia thinks that e-sports on television doesn’t exist. Though all OTT players including Hotstar, SonyLiv and Voot have delved into some kind of e-sports on digital, the industry cannot be defined because the numbers are too small. “We know the number of people that engage in e-sports. About 90 million people play PUBG in India and 30 million people play cricket game every month. These numbers will start translating into this phenomenon which will be on digital, TV and live,” he added.

    All youth focus brands and technology brands show interest in e-sports. Voot currently has some 100 hours of e-sports content out of which ESL has 40 hours of content.

    “We don’t have an end date to DreamHack since we just started. We believe no one in this country understands both kids and youth better than Viacom does and while television and digital are passive engagement platforms, e-sports is an active immersive engagement platform,” said Kedia.

    The state of sports industry over the next three to five years is estimated to grow by 5.3 per cent in Asia and 9.4 per cent in Middle East and Africa (ME&A) according to PwC Sports Survey 2018. Despite the growth in Asia and ME&A, globally the industry will witness a drop by 10.2 per cent. This is because the market conditions across the industry are stabilising as it transitions from traditional to digital media consumption, with sports leaders continuing to predict healthy growth in absolute terms.

    Viacom18 on television is experimenting and conceptualising with some interesting formats and that will not be just U Cypher that we saw on MTV. “We believe there are 150 million potential viewers of e-sports on digital and that number is only here to grow,” Kedia concluded.