Applications
DTH adds 1.6 mn subs in festive month of October
MUMBAI: Cable operators have got a fresh warning from their DTH rivals, ahead of the digitisation mandate. For the festive month of October, direct-to-home (DTH) operators have mopped up 1.6 million subscribers, the highest monthly mobilisation this fiscal.
DTH added 2.85 million subscribers during the three-month period ended June. There was a marginal slowdown as the sector collected 2.5 million in the second quarter.
Videocon has emerged as the leader among the pack, adding 1.8 million subscribers this fiscal as it inches close towards the 5-million mark.
“We have added 400,000 subscribers in October itself. Being a strong consumer electronics company, our wide dealer network has helped. We have also marketed the product aggressively,” said Videocon d2h chief executive officer Anil Khera.
Dish TV, India’s largest DTH company in terms of subscriber base, has added 1.735 million this fiscal. While it collected 1.3 million subscribers during the first six months of the fiscal, in October the company added 435,000 new customers.
Bharti’s Airtel Digital TV had around 400,000 subscribers in October. It collected 1.3 million subscribers in the fiscal’s first two quarters.
Tata Sky is also among the top four DTH players in terms of new customer additions.
Ashok Lalla joins Mindshare as leader, digital, South Asia
Applications
Canva acquires animation and AI startups Cavalry and MangoAI
The deals strengthen Canva’s push into enterprise and AI-led design workflows
AUSTRALIA: Global visual communication platform Canva has stepped up its acquisition drive, buying UK-based 2D animation platform Cavalry and US-based AI startup MangoAI to deepen its AI-powered creative stack.
Cavalry, whose tools are used by brands including Amazon, Meta, Google and Netflix, will strengthen Canva’s motion design capabilities. The deal builds on Canva’s 2024 acquisition of Affinity, which has crossed four million downloads since launch. With Cavalry, Canva now counts seven Europe-based acquisitions, underscoring its global expansion strategy.
MangoAI, an early-stage startup focused on video advertising optimisation, will integrate its reinforcement learning systems into Canva AI. The move aims to enable brands to generate personalised marketing content in real time, cutting production cycles while improving campaign performance. MangoAI co-founder Vinith Misra will join Canva as reinforcement learning lead in its research lab.
Canva co-founder and chief operating officer Cliff Obrecht said the acquisitions reflect the company’s ambition to make professional-grade creative tools more accessible without sidelining human creativity. The goal, he said, is to bring everything from vector to motion design into a single, integrated suite.
The company now reports 265 million active users, including 31 million paid subscribers, and $4 billion in annualised revenue, up 36 per cent year on year. The latest buys further position Canva against rivals such as Adobe and Apple’s Creator Studio as it pushes deeper into enterprise workflows.
Canva head of pro design marketing Liam Fisher, said AI is intended to act as a creative assistant rather than a replacement, reinforcing the primacy of craft and individual design judgement.
