New Playbook: eGaming Co, Brands Target Offline Streaming
Last weekend, more than 20,000 Mumbai residents gathered at the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Stadium over three days to attend an event, which was so popular that the police had to erect barricades to prevent more fans from getting in. This wasn’t a concert featuring Bollywood stars or a stand-up gig. Instead, it was a first of its kind egaming streaming event by gaming major Krafton. The event was the grand finale of the popular BGMI (Battleground Mobile India) series. Gaming companies such as Krafton, Nodwin Gaming and Jio Games along with brands such as iQOO, Lenovo and Red Bull are investing large sums of money in offline streaming of popular eSports leagues in physical arenas across India. The sponsors are encouraged by the large footfalls in these tournaments in a single day, which they believe can help attract a wider audience of potential players and viewers. For instance, BGMI’s finale saw celebrity athlete Neeraj Chopra distribute a prize pool of ₹2 crore to the winners, one of the highest sums paid in South Asian esports. “We were overwhelmed by the unexpected response that Mumbai showed us,” said Karan Pathak, head of esports at Krafton. “We wanted to fulfill the dreams of these 16 teams and 82 players coming from India’s grassroots and being staged at this massive pedestal.” Pathak said that Krafton wishes to make BGMI a global game and therefore, will announce another series this month with a total prize pool of ₹2.5 crore, besides inviting participation from Korean teams. According to a report by FICCI-EY, esports tournaments are set to gather a total prize money of ₹30 crore in 2023. However, the mark has already been surpassed in October, industry executives say. “Tournaments are no longer confined to just online platforms; they are now being held in stadiums and broadcast on mainstream sports networks like Star Sports or Jio Cinema,” said Animesh Agarwal, founder of marketing management firm 8Bit Creatives.
All Credit to Festive Season, Digital Lenders Eye More Biz
While the December quarter historically sees consumer-facing businesses making the most of it, this year the fintech lending industry is on a much stronger footing to meet the heightened credit demand. On August 4 it was reported that fintech lenders reported stronger and profitable balance sheets for the last fiscal year. “Over the last so many years, incidents around IL&FS, demonetisation, introduction of GST, Covid-19 and finally the digital lending guidelines had disrupted the industry, but this year we have not seen any such disruption,” said Prithvi Chandrasekhar, chief executive at InCred Consumer Finance. InCred typically sees demand for credit go up two times during the festive season, Chandrasekhar said. For digital lending platforms, a jump in demand does not automatically convert into a corresponding increase in disbursals, but overall disbursals go up on an average of 15-20% during the festive period. Mumbai-based platform NeoGrowth is hoping to take its quarterly credit disbursal to Rs 750 crore during the current festive season. “When we lend to businesses, demand builds over a two- or three-month period ahead of the festive season, because businesses need to order materials and store them. So, we have already seen some uptick between August and October and we expect 15% to 20% more business in this quarter compared to the last quarter,” said managing director Arun Nayyar. Digital payments major Paytm, while announcing its quarterly results said in the next three months, it is expecting a revival in credit demand which had slowed in the last quarter. The company has partnered with a new set of lenders who will go live by the Diwali season, the company said. In comparison to last year, loan enquiries in recent months have shot up by 150%, said Hardika Shah, founder, Kinara Capital. Disbursement is 11% higher month-on-month, she added. While banks and NBFCs have historically dominated this segment with offers on cards for consumers and business loans for merchants, buoyed by the overall rise in digitisation of the economy, the fintech lending industry is coming of age and seeking a larger share of the credit pie.
India Inc Gears Up to Manage Crisis, Cyber Threats
Crisis management, cyber resilience, and handling emergencies have taken centre stage, prompting corporates to take pre-emptive actions to deal with them, a PwC India survey said. According to India’s Crisis and Resilience Survey 2023, the looming spectre of unpredictable events, alongside escalating cyber threats like ransomware, has nudged 96 percent of businesses to elevate their cyber resilience blueprints. Moreover, 97 per cent of organizations are poised to significantly invest in crisis management, viewing unforeseeable events as tangible risks, it added. “The survey indicates that crisis management, cyber resilience, and emergency management are taking the centre stage,” it said. PwC India said 112 organizations from diverse industries, such as telecommunications, industrial products and manufacturing, financial services, banking and capital markets, automotive, education, healthcare, and pharmaceuticals, were surveyed. With disruptions on the rise from 80 percent in 2019 to 98 percent in 2023, organizations have made resilience a strategic organizational priority, the survey said. “The numbers from the 2023 survey aren’t just statistics – they’re a reflection of the urgent shift in mindset needed across the board. Resilience is no longer a buzzword; it’s a business imperative. And while challenges loom large, it’s heartening to see organizations prioritizing crisis resilience as a key element in their strategic lexicon,” said Puneet Garkhel, Partner and Leader, Forensic Services, PwC India.
GenAI Claims Lion’s Share of Global AI Startup Funding
Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) companies have become the major driver of unicorns — startups reaching $1 billion valuation — with 60% of the new ones falling in this category, according to a report from venture capital firm Accel. Funding in European and Israeli GenAI startups was close to $1 billion in the last 12 months compared with over $14 billion in U.S. ones, though skewed due to a $10 billion funding to OpenAI alone, the report said. “A very limited number of companies which have attracted a disproportionate amount of the capital… the investment going into the foundational models – we will see that going down,” Philippe Botteri, a partner at Accel, said. AI foundation models, developed by Microsoft-backed OpenAI, Meta and others, are capable of generating text, images or other media in response to prompts. Europe, home to AI startups such as AI video avatar platform Synthesia and Stability AI, is already producing 50% more AI publications than the United States with similar citation rate, according to the report. “In the future, the money is going to be directed more towards a company like Synthesia for developing applications, then we are going to get to a more normalized balance where we expect a two-to-one (funding) ratio between the U.S. and Europe,” said Botteri. At the end of the third quarter, tech giants ranging from Microsoft to Nvidia (NVDA.O), added $2.4 trillion of market capitalization over the last 12 months, fuelled by the potential of AI, the report said. Botteri expects specialized AI applications catering to cybersecurity, healthcare, construction and legal would gain traction.
Online platforms clocked GMV of Rs 47,000 crore during week one of the festive sales
Week 1 of the 2023 festive season sale, which concluded on 15 October, saw online platforms clocking a GMV (gross merchandise value) of about Rs 47,000 crore, growing at 19 percent over Week 1 of the 2022 festive season sale, according to the latest report by Redseer Strategy Consultants. The firm said that high ASP (average selling price) categories steered Week 1 to a robust 19 percent year-on-year growth. According to Redseer’s latest estimates, the Flipkart Group (consisting of Flipkart, Myntra, and Shopsy) continues to assert its leadership in Week 1 of the 2023 festive season sale. Redseer claimed that the Flipkart Group further gained market share over last year’s sale to reach 63 percent in GMV terms while also remaining the leader in volume terms. This was followed by Amazon, with a substantial market share. In volume terms, Meesho retained its second position, notably gaining market share in Week 1 of the 2023 festive season sale, with the share increasing to 25 percent of the total orders, up from 21 percent in Week 1 of the 2022 festive season sale. Together, mobiles, electronics, and large appliances drove 67 percent of the GMV in the Week 1 sale period. The last day of Week 1, the only ‘non-shradh’ day in Week 1, saw a 36 per cent year-on-year growth compared to the last day of Week 1 in 2022. This was the second-highest year-on-year growth in a single day in this festive season. “Two Indias clearly emerged in Week 1 of this festive season: One, that is holding on to spending to buy premium products at the right prices and one that is shopping more frequently but spending on value for money products,” said Abhishek Tandon, engagement manager at Redseer. “This ties in with our overall consumption thesis, that while Indian consumers are holding back discretionary spends, they are willing to spend if they get the desired value or deals.” Trends suggest that low ASP categories will continue to grow in the coming days. Redseer’s consumer surveys indicated that in the remainder of the festive season, 55 percent of the consumers surveyed who shopped during Week 1 are planning to make more purchases in the remaining period. Here, more than 50 percent of these consumers are planning to make these purchases in fashion. More than 25 percent of these consumers are planning to purchase other low ASP (Average selling price) categories like beauty and personal care and home and living.
Shopping app installs were 47% higher during Diwali
Adjust, a measurement and analytics company, and data.ai, mobile intelligence platform unveiled a joint report titled ‘Diwali Decoded: India Festive Report 2023’, delving into the trends of mobile apps during the Diwali season in India. The report showcases the increases in app installs and session lengths across all verticals that have been analyzed as compared to the previous year. For example, shopping app installs and sessions during Diwali week (October 22 – 26) were 47% and 14% higher than the 2022 average, respectively. Additionally, food & drink app revenue events were 38% above the yearly average during Diwali week. Recent data reveals that mobile apps have become the preferred choice for Indian consumers, with 46% utilizing them for learning, 79% for exploration, and a substantial 78% for making purchases, particularly during this festive period. As per the report, India has generated $1.6 billion in revenue in 2022. “Demand for mobile apps and games is on the rise in India. In 2022 alone, we saw nearly 29 billion downloads, up 8% year over year. Holiday periods like Diwali can represent powerful times to reach and engage consumers on the device they always have with them: their phones. But it’s a highly competitive time, and brands need to know the lay of the land in order to benchmark and plan effectively for the Diwali 2023 holiday period,” Lexi Sydow, corporate marketing director, data.ai, said.
Google for India 2023
Generative AI-based enhancements
Earlier this year, Google rolled out the generative AI experience for search, called Search Generative Experience (SGE) in English and Hindi as an experiment in Search Labs. At today’s event the tech giant announced that it is introducing new visual and local capabilities to search in India. Now many of the search overviews will have image and video overviews.
Launch of generative AI center of excellence (CoE)
Google has announced a partnership with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology’s (MeitY) indic language initiative Bhashini.
Pixel smartphones manufacturing in India
In one of the major highlights, Google announced that it will start manufacturing Pixel smartphones in India. AI-based security Google rolled out the real-time scanning capability for Google Play Protect. Google Play Protect is built-in and proactive protection against malware that scans 125 billion apps daily and the new addition is expected to enhance its capability.
Telcos in Race to Offer Best User Experience
Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio are in a heated race when it comes to customer experience metrics, especially in the case of 5G, according to a recent report by Opensignal. While Airtel leads on metrics like video and gaming experience, Jio is the clear winner in download speeds. In terms of the overall experience, cash-strapped Vodafone Idea is a steady third, though it severely lags in terms of download speeds. In overall experience of 3G, 4G & 5G, Jio tops in network availability. In video experience Jio & Airtel are almost the same. In Live video experience Jio & Airtel report the same user experience. In gaming experience Airtel tops the user experience by 4 points. In voice app experience also Airtel tops.
Meta Bringing a Broadcast Channel to FB
Meta Platforms said that it will roll out broadcast channels, a feature for public distribution of messages from individuals, to Facebook and Messenger. Social media firms are bringing in more features to shore up engagement across apps in a highly competitive online environment. The announcement comes as rival messaging app Telegram’s broadcast channels have assumed an outsized role in the conflict between Israel and Hamas, as the primary means that the Palestinian Islamist group uses to communicate with the world. “We’re currently testing the ability for Pages to create broadcast channels and expect to roll this out in the coming weeks,” Meta said in a statement. Meta expanded WhatsApp Channels to users in over 150 countries last month. The feature is also available on Instagram.