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Tag: Tata

  • Tata & China Telecom ink video network deal to tap $2.6 bn market

    Tata & China Telecom ink video network deal to tap $2.6 bn market

    NEW DELHI: Catering to a market opportunity of $2.57 billion, Tata Communications and China Telecom Global have teamed up to launch a new video network partnership to enable and manage media content for customers in China and globally.

     

    This partnership leverages China Telecom Global’s regional expertise and leadership and Tata Communications’ Global Video Network to ensure a compelling service offering to their customers.

     

    The partnership, which began with the successful delivery of the 2015 World Figure Skating Championship from Shanghai to Japan, enables China Telecom Global to leverage the global reach, quality and reliability of Tata Communications’ Global Video Network to offer unparalleled reach for all their live sporting events in China.

     

    China Telecom Global vice president, product development Pengcheng Fan said, “Mobile video consumption is growing at an exponential rate with a robust growth trajectory expected in the next five years. Through our new video network partnership, China Telecom Global can provide seamless connectivity for our media and entertainment customers across China. The partnership is defined by connectivity to key global destinations, premium quality and industry leading SLAs. We are excited about this partnership as it helps to further differentiate our service offerings in the market.”

     

    Reports state that mobile video will generate more than 69 per cent of mobile data traffic by 2019. To ensure that its customers have leading edge technology, Tata Communications recently launched the new Media Ecosystem, which combines traditional video contribution services with IP-based connectivity. The ecosystem enables seamless management of content as a cloud-based managed service and supports global media distribution requirements, OTT and mobility applications. This platform provides customers with flexibility and intelligence, allowing customers to experiment with new formats and to launch new services and channels at the touch of a button.

     

    Tata Communications vice president and general manager, global media &entertainment servicesBrian Morris added, “Tata Communications is dedicated to offering its media customers access to key media hotspots for the distribution of premium broadcast quality content across the globe. This partnership with China Telecom Global is a natural step in that direction and marks the expansion of Tata Communications’ Global Video Network reach into China. We are excited to leverage China Telecom Global’s video network in China and to offer our customers access to this key region, connecting broadcasters, media and entertainment providers, news bureaus and service providers across the globe.”

  • Al Jazeera condemns censorship, writes letter to Indian govt.

    Al Jazeera condemns censorship, writes letter to Indian govt.

    MUMBAI: Al Jazeera English has demanded talks with the Indian government after the government decided to take the channel off – air for five days.

     

    The ban, which came into effect from 22 April 2015, concerns maps of Pakistan shown on the channel which on occasions during 2013 and 2014 did not mark Pakistan-controlled Kashmir as separate territory. The maps produced by external software gave the same treatment to Indian-controlled Kashmir, though this was not subject to similar complaints.

     

    Once the issue was pointed out by the Indian authorities, the channel ensured from 22 September 2014 that all borders of Kashmir were marked with dotted lines and shaded differently.

     

    Al Jazeera English managing director Al Anstey said: “This ban is a disproportionate response to an issue that we fixed promptly after it was pointed out. It needlessly deprives Indian viewers of our global news and programmes. Unfortunately, this is the latest in a series of ongoing issues. Our journalists have not been granted visas for years now. We approach India like we do any other country – showing the world the positive and the negative, the humanity, and the diversity. This can be easily witnessed in the integrity and quality of the output that we have been allowed from India. We have though been severely hampered for too long by constraints placed upon us when trying to tell Indian stories to the world. This is why I’m writing to the information minister seeking talks that will help us move forward in a constructive way.”

     

    The ban is effective for viewers on Dish TV, Tata Sky, Reliance and Airtel Digital TV. Al Jazeera English is still available online.

  • Q2-2015: Reliance Retail juggernaut grows 20 per cent y-o-y

    Q2-2015: Reliance Retail juggernaut grows 20 per cent y-o-y

    BENGALURU:  The Mukesh Ambani led Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) announced its Q2-2015 results on 13 October reporting a y-o-y  de-growth of 4.3 per cent in consolidated turnover to Rs 1,13,396 crore in Q2-2015 from Rs 1,18,439 crore in Q2-2014, and a growth of 5.1 per cent versus the immediate trailing quarter Q1-2015 turnover of Rs 1,07,905 crore. During HY-2015, the company’s revenue grew just 1 per cent to Rs 2,21,301 crore from Rs 2,19,054 crore in HY-2014.
     
    The company’s organised retail segment contribution to RIL’s turnover grew from 2.93 per cent (Rs 3470 crore) in Q2-2014 to 3.67 per cent (Rs 4167 crore) in Q2-2015, registering a 20.1 per cent growth y-o-y. In Q1-2015, RIL’s retail segment contributed 3.71 per cent (Rs 3999 crore) to the company’s turnover registering a 4.1 per cent growth q-o-q.  In FY-2014, the segment had reported revenue of Rs 14,566 crore or 2.69 per cent of RIL’s turnover of Rs 5,41,599 crore. A Reliance earnings release for Q2-2014 says reports EBDIT figures for its retail segment at Rs 186 crore, recording a y-o-y EBDIT growth of 96 per cent.

    This quarter, the company’s overall operational outlet count crossed 2000 with a presence in 155 cities of the country.  Some of the store formats under Reliance Retail Brands include Reliance Retail, Reliance Market, Reliance Fresh, Reliance Digital, Reliance Trends, Reliance Footprint and Reliance Jewels.

     

    In the overall context of RIL numbers, its retail segment figures may seem small, but how many companies can boast of annual revenues of about Rs 15,000 crore plus, that the segment must cross this fiscal? Not too many.

     

    According to an Economic Times report, in comparison, Tata group’s retail divisions, including Titan, Croma, Trent and Landmark, had revenue of about Rs 17,000 crore. Kishore Biyani’s Future Retail had revenue of Rs 11,336 crore in fiscal 2014.

     

    India’s retail industry has been pegged at a quarter of India’s gross domestic product (GDP) about $525 million or Rs 31.5 lakh crore and is expected to double over the next five years leading to 2020. There is more than enough scope for the company’s organised retail segment to grow and contribute in a big way to RIL’s numbers over the next few years.

     

     

    Click here for the financial statement

     

  • Automotive brands struggle to differentiate themselves in India

    Automotive brands struggle to differentiate themselves in India

    MUMBAI: The automobile industry of India has always been a favourite among consumers, but according to the recent JD Power Asia Pacific 2014 India Brand Influence and Positioning Study (BIPS), very few automotive brands in the intensely competitive India passenger-car market are able to establish a distinct position in car buyers’ minds.

     

    In India, brands with the highest brand influence scores (on a 1,000-point scale) are Maruti Suzuki (837), Hyundai (758), Toyota (729), Honda (723) and Tata (703), while Mitsubishi (565) and Fiat (586) are amongst brands with the lowest influence.

     

    According to the study, strong brand influence may have a positive effect on purchase intent for a particular brand, as brand influence scores correlate highly with brand consideration rates. The study also segments the market using psychographic, demographic and behavioral attributes to help automakers identify and understand who their best prospects are in the new-car market.

     

    “Brand image and reputation have gained significant importance over the last five years for consumers in the Indian auto industry and are key purchase criterion,” said JD Power Asia Pacific Singapore executive director Mohit Arora. “Brand Influence scores measure the impact a brand has in the market, which is critical for automakers to track and measure,” he aaded.

     

    As per the report, in the Northern and Eastern regions of India consumers in India have substantial difficulty distinguishing between many of the larger European and US automotive brands such as Fiat, Ford and Renault. In contrast, Japanese brands, such as Honda and Toyota, are able to more effectively differentiate themselves from other brands.

     

    Despite its Japanese origin, consumers view Maruti Suzuki as an Indian brand, less modern than other brands but distinctly positioned as offering affordable and fuel-efficient cars. Similar to Maruti Suzuki, Tata is also seen as a brand primarily positioned on affordability and fuel efficiency.

     

    Consumers in India perceive these Japanese brands to be more contemporary, offering the latest technology and engineering and perceive them to have a more global image than their European, Korean and US counterparts.  

     

    Explaining the brand positioning, Arora elaborated, “Understanding their current positioning relative to the competition from a consumer’s perspective as well as the type of messaging themes that appeal most to a target segment helps automotive manufacturers sharpen their marketing efforts. Generally, consumers are able to differentiate more effectively on vehicle features they can see, touch and feel than on intangibles.”

     

    The 2014 India Brand Influence and Positioning Study is based on interviews with 8,009 car owners who have owned their vehicles from 30 to 42 months and who were asked to compare two vehicle brands. The study was fielded from January through April 2014 across 30 cities in India, a period when Indian car industry was at an all time low in sales and spirit.

  • Samsung is India’s Most Trusted Brand; Sony ranks 2nd, Tata is 3rd

    Samsung is India’s Most Trusted Brand; Sony ranks 2nd, Tata is 3rd

    MUMBAI: India’s much anticipated and most rigorous brand evaluation, The Brand Trust Report, India Study, a comparison of the trust held in brands, has been released for 2014. Samsung has emerged as India’s Most Trusted brand this year. Sony ranks as India’s 2nd Most Trusted Brand followed by Tata which has ranked 3rd this year. In 2013, the three brands had ranked second, third and fifth respectively. LG, ranks 4th in this year’s list, followed by the three year leader, Nokia, at 5th place. Hewlett Packard move up fourteen ranks over last year to become India’s 6th Most Trusted Brand and Hero leaps seventy-nine ranks to become India’s 7th Most Trusted. Honda is at rank 8th, followed by Reliance at 9th. Mahindra betters its last year rank by sixty-nine places to get ranked as India’s 10th Most Trusted brand.

    The Brand Trust Report, the fourth in its series, is the result of a comprehensive primary research conducted on the proprietary 61-Attribute Trust Matrix of TRA (formerly known as Trust Research Advisory). This year’s study involved 15000 hours of fieldwork covering 2500 consumer-influencers across 16 cities in India and generated 5 million datapoints and 20000 unique brands from which the top 1200 brands have been listed in this year’s report. These brands have been classified into 284 different categories as against 213 categories in 2013. The 244-page report is available for Rs. 14000/-.

    N. Chandramouli, CEO, TRA, said on the occasion of the report’s launch, “Samsung has grown steadily in trust ranks over the last four years – 5th in 2011, 4th in 2012, 2nd in 2013 and has reached India’s Most Trusted rank this year. When a brand focuses on its trust with intensity, apart from trust the brand gains in market-share, product premium and acceptance of new products as an automatic by-product. Samsung’s strategy of focusing on the core intangibles of its brand is evident from its climb to leadership in BTR 2014.”

    An analysis of the 100 Most Trusted Brands in 2014 revealed that most brands were represented from Diversified with 11, Consumer Electronics with 10, Bath/Beauty with 9, Mobiles with 8, 4-Wheelers, Telephony, and 2-Wheelers with 4 each, and Personal Technology, Sportswear and Aerated Drinks with 3 brands each.

     “Among the top 100 Most Trusted brands, 75 were net gainers while 25 took a fall. The gainers gained an average of 86.23 ranks, while those that fell took a dip of 27.16 ranks on average, showing that the average gain among the top hundred beats the average loss in ranks by 317%. A connected surmise

     

    could be drawn that in the year that was slow for many, brands took the opportunity to focus more on their trust intangibles, scoring points in the process. For long term sustainability and success, it is important that brands have a long term investment in trust”, Chandramouli added.

  • LinOpinion GolinHarris wins mandate for Tata MF

    LinOpinion GolinHarris wins mandate for Tata MF

    MUMBAI: LinOpinion GolinHarris, a public relations consultancy and the PR division of Lowe Lintas India, has announced that it has won the mandate for Tata Mutual Fund. The deal will further strengthen its finance practice.

    LinOpinion GolinHarris president and Lowe Lintas & Partners executive VP Kavita Lakhani says, “We are very proud to partner with this prestigious brand.  We have in the past, and currently worked with some of the best brands in the finance practice and are delighted to add Tata Mutual Fund to our list of clients. Post our partnership with GolinHarris, we continue to enhance our product and deliver PR strategies with greater focus on quality and measurable results. We look forward to doing some noteworthy work for both these brands in the years to come.”

    The agency’s past and current experience includes campaigns for JP Morgan AMC, Principal AMC, Principal Retirement Advisors, Financial Planning Standards Board, National Bank of Australia, IDFC AMC when it was Standard Chartered AMC, Standard Chartered Bank, Standard Chartered Private Equity, Taurus MF, Religare Group, Department of Sales Tax, among others.

  • Faced with shortage of good films, MIFF 2014 to do away with Indian animation competition

    Faced with shortage of good films, MIFF 2014 to do away with Indian animation competition

    NEW DELHI: The Films Division, which organises the Mumbai International Film Festival for Short, Documentary and Animation films every second year, has decided to do away with the Animation category under the Indian competition section in view of the poor quality of entries received in previous editions.

    It has decided that all Animation films will now be entered into the International competition section of the Festival expected to be held from 3 to 9 February next year at the National Centre for Performing Arts (also known as Tata Centre) in Mumbai.

    The Division has already held two meetings in Mumbai and Delhi to seek opinion of filmmakers and others on its proposals for the next edition. It has now sought written views on its proposals for MIFF 2014.

    To avoid confusion with regular feature films, it has decided to rename its category of fiction films as ‘Short Fiction Films’ and to restrict the maximum duration to 40 or 50 minutes instead of 70 minutes.

    There will be two sections of documentary films in the international competition: one below and the other above forty minutes. There will also be a fiction section of up to forty to fifty minutes in both Indian and international sections. There will be a documentary section in the Indian competition and an animation category in the international competition.

    The Festival will also have Information Section, Retrospectives / Special Packages, and a Marketing Section.

    There is a proposal to have two cut-off dates (for sending entries for selection in Indian Competition section only) to ease the process of pre-selection of films: 31 July for films completed before 30 May and 15 September for films being completed by 31 August.

    Apple ProRes (HQ) is being proposed the default screening format for the festival and also for sending competition entries.

  • TNS appoints Richard Ingleton as global CEO

    MUMBAI: TNS has appointed Ernst and Young partner Richard Ingleton as its new CEO. He will be joining on 1 July and will replace Eric Salama who held the combined role as Kantar CEO.

    Ingleton has led the global customer practice at E&Y for the past five years and the global marketing effectiveness practice at Accenture prior to that. He has also held roles at Virgin and Tata.

    Salama said: “I’m thrilled that Richard is joining. I knew he was the right person for us from our very first meeting. He has had tremendous impact with clients, built a strong team and grown the practice globally and has generated tremendous loyalty. I have no doubt that our people and clients will benefit from his leadership.”

    Ingleton said, “Over the past few years my clients have shown more and more interest in the value that comes from insight, research and big data. TNS is fantastically well-placed to do something special in this space – and that’s why I’m so keen to join.”

  • WPP acquires Canada’s john st.

    MUMBAI: Global communications network WPP has acquired Canadian creative agency john st.

    Founded in 2001 and based in Toronto, john st. employs approximately 100 people and has unaudited revenues for the year ended 31 December 2012 of approximately $14.0 million.

    The acquisition of john st. strengthens WPP‘s presence in Canada. “We see enormous value in being part of WPP,” said john st. president Arthur Fleischmann. “We‘ll now be able to augment our current services in areas that clients are asking for, such as media, direct and public relations.”

    john st.‘s clients include AstraZeneca, Kruger, ING Direct, Maple Leaf Foods and Tata. Over the last 12 years, john st. has built an international reputation as one of Canada‘s leading innovative creative agencies. It was recently named Silver Agency of the Year as well as Silver Digital Agency of the Year by Strategy, a leading Canadian marketing publication.

    WPP is the leading communications services group in Canada. WPP remains committed to building and broadening its client offer in the mature economies of the world. Collectively (including associates), the Group has revenues of $450 million and employs more than 2,500 people in Canada. WPP companies represented in the market include JWT, Ogilvy, GroupM, Hill+Knowlton Strategies and Burson-Marsteller. In 2010, WPP‘s wholly-owned subsidiary Young & Rubicam Group acquired the Toronto-based TAXI creative network.

  • Social Wavelength wins Ginger Hotels social media mandate

    MUMBAI: Ginger Hotels, a TATA enterprise, has awarded the social media duties to social media agency Social Wavelength.

    The chain of hotels is spread across 23 locations in India with 26 hotels launched on the concept of smart basics.

    Ginger Hotels marketing manager Alisagar Merchant said, “Social media will help us connect with our prospective customers, understand our current audience more closely and enable us offer better products and services. With Social Wavelength‘s strength, expertise and experience in the field of social media communication and social media monitoring, we are sure they will help us listen to the customer‘s mind and also connect with them effectively.”

    Social Wavelength vice president Mihir Karkare commented, “The concept of Smart Basics for a hotel is very unique and we are delighted to take this concept to the consumers. We are sure that social media will play a significant role in the audience interactions for Ginger Hotels”

    The primary objective behind the concept of Ginger hotels is to provide a superior product offering and consistent experience to travellers, beyond the present offerings in the industry. Ginger Hotels have also recently won the ‘Best Budget Hotel‘ award by Outlook Traveller.

    Social Wavelength has presence in Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Bangalore. Its services include social media monitoring, online-reputation management, online PR, social media management and building online communities. Social Wavelength is also the authorised reseller for Radian6 for the Indian market.