MAM
Sony India to up marketing spend by 25% to Rs 4.5 bn in FY’13
MUMBAI: Despite the difficult economic environment and high inflation, Japanese consumer electronics company Sony India plans to up its marketing spend by 25 per cent to Rs 4.5 billion as it aims at 30 per cent growth in sales.
The company‘s marketing spend in the previous fiscal was Rs 3.6 billion. Sales stood at Rs 63.13 billion, up from Rs 54.46 billion in the trailing fiscal.
All the brand campaigns in the previous fiscal were supported with above-the-line and below-the-line activities, including print and television commercial, Web, PR, cinema and shop-front. This fiscal Sony plans to pump up the investment, which will be in sync with the business growth.
Its brand campaigns for Cyber-shot with brand ambassador Deepika Padukone and Handycam are currently on-air. They started from last week of April and will be visible till end of May. A Vaio campaign with brand ambassador Kareena Kapoor is expected to hit next month followed by Bravia campaign in August.
The company says that it has a favourable presence over the digital domain as well and the site sony.co.in is a ready reckoner for product information, retail outlets and help guide and tutorials for product usage. It says that the site got about 30 million visits in the previous fiscal.
Sony’s Facebook page has more than 650,000 fans and over 500,000 channel views on YouTube.
The consumer electronics company also plans to enhance the existing distribution network from 10,400 to 12,200. It will also boost after-sales service with 285 service touch points across India. As per latest GFK Research Findings, Bravia is the top selling brand in all screen sizes right from 22/26 inch up to 46/55 inch.
As a matter of fact, Sony Bravia Internet TV has been the favourite in India, garnering a market share of 53 per cent of Internet TV (with Browser) sales in CY11. In the fiscal ended 31 March 2011, Sony had sold 830,000 Bravia TVs, which went up to 900,000 units by end of the previous fiscal.
The company claimed that Sony has been ranked as the number one brand that comes to consumer’s mind, when prompted with the word ‘General Electronics’, as per a Customer Equity Tracking Study done by Nielsen in March.
Digital
Content India 2026 opens with a copro pitch, a spice evangelist and a £10,000 prize for Indian storytelling
Dish TV and C21Media’s three-day summit puts seven ambitious projects before an international jury, and two walk away with serious development money
MUMBAI: India’s content industry gathered in Mumbai this March for Content India 2026, a three-day summit organised by Dish TV in partnership with C21Media, and it wasted no time making a statement. The event opened with a Copro Pitch that put seven scripted and unscripted television concepts before an international panel of judges, and by the end of it, two projects had walked away with £10,000 each in marketing prize money from C21Media to support development and international promotion.
The jury, comprising Frank Spotnitz, Fiona Campbell, Rashmi Bajpai, Bal Samra and Rachel Glaister, evaluated a shortlist that ranged from a dark Mumbai comedy-drama about mental health (Dirty Minds, created by Sundar Aaron) to a Delhi coming-of-age mystery (Djinn Patrol, by Neha Sharma and Kilian Irwin), a techno-thriller about a teenage gaming prodigy (Kanpur X Satori, by Suchita Bhatia), an investigative crime drama blending mythology and modern thriller (The Age of Kali, by Shivani Bhatija), a documentary on India’s spice heritage (The Masala Quest, hosted by Sarina Kamini), a documentary on competitive gaming (Respawn: India’s Esports Revolution, by George Mangala Thomas and Sangram Mawari), and a reality-horror competition merging gaming and immersive fear (Scary Goose, by Samar Iqbal).
The session was hosted by Mayank Shekhar.
The two winners were Djinn Patrol, backed by Miura Kite, formerly of Participant Media and known for Chinatown and Keep Sweet: Pray & Obey, with Jaya Entertainment, producers of Real Kashmir Football Club, also attached; and The Masala Quest, created and hosted by Sarina Kamini, an Indian-Australian cook, author and self-described “spice evangelist.”
The summit also unveiled the Content India Trends Report, whose findings made for bracing reading. Daoud Jackson, senior analyst at OMDIA, set the tone: “By 2030, online video in India will nearly double the revenue of traditional TV, becoming the main driver of growth.” He noted that in 2025, India produced a quarter of all YouTube videos globally, overtaking the United States, while Indians collectively spend 117 years daily on YouTube and 72 years on Instagram. Traditional subscription TV is declining as free TV and connected TV gain ground, forcing broadcasters to innovate. “AI-generated content is just 2 per cent of engagement,” Jackson added, “highlighting the dominance of high-quality human content. The key for Indian media companies is scaling while monetising effectively from day one.”
Hannah Walsh, principal analyst at Ampere Analysis, added hard numbers to the picture. India produced over 24,000 titles in January 2026 alone, with 19,000 available internationally. The country now accounts for 12 per cent of Asia-Pacific content spend, up from 8 per cent in 2021, outpacing both Japan and China. Key exporters include JioStar, Zee Entertainment, Sony India, Amazon and Netflix, delivering over 7,500 Indian-produced titles abroad each year. The top importing markets are Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, the United States and the Philippines. Scripted content dominates globally at 88 per cent, with crime dramas and children’s and family titles performing particularly strongly.
Manoj Dobhal, chief executive and executive director of Dish TV India, framed the summit’s ambition squarely. “Stories don’t need translation. They need a platform, discovery, and reach, local or global,” he said. “India produces more movies than any country, our streaming platforms compete globally, and our tech and creators win international awards. Yet fragmentation slows growth. Producers, platforms, and tech move in different lanes. We need shared spaces, collaboration, and an ecosystem where ideas, technology, and people meet. That is why we built Content India.”
The data, the pitches and the prize money all pointed to the same conclusion: India is not waiting for the world to discover its stories. It is building the infrastructure to sell them.
