iWorld
Gaming & entertainment content are emerging as major growth areas for Twitter in Asia: Maya Hari
KOLKATA: It has been a while now since when the digital platforms have started reorienting their focus on the Asia Pacific (APAC) region. Amid intense competition, Twitter is also tapping into the new wave of users across the market. While the California-based social media platform has been scaling its operations gradually in the region, gaming and media-entertainment are emerging as key potential segments.
At the second phase of APOS 2020, Twitter APAC VP & managing director Maya Hari spoke about the interesting consumption behaviour which emerged this year. Twitter recorded 45 million conversations around gaming- in just the first four months of 2020 in the southeast Asia region, up nearly 50 per cent year-on-year. The predominantly millennial internet audience is preferring gaming with social interactivity more.
The social media platform polled users at the end of the first half of this year. Nearly half of the users in Australia have two subscriptions for content but interestingly over a third of Twitter users have more than two subscriptions for entertainment content. Despite this, the users were willing to access more entertainment content. In addition to that, tweets of live videos also doubled in the first half of the year.
This massive upsurge is not a surprising trend because gaming and entertainment consumption has been seeing an upward trend for quite some time now. What these changed circumstances have done is the expediting of this process in a more “pronounced fashion." However, due to the absence of new film releases, TV and OTT content have seen massive consumption this year.
“One of the big elements that we are focusing on is partnering around premium video content and this has been a consistent strategy for the past two-three years. In Asia, we have partnered with over 60 content creators including broadcasters, content rights owners across the region. Our focus has been this year has challenged as large scale sports and events have been challenged. We found that better balance in being able to drive monetisation around content has come from getting brands to double down on cultural moments or market at scale,” Hari said.
Other social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube are also aggressively upping their focus on the region. As Hari pointed out, the experience of live videos sets Twitter apart from its foes. She termed the concurrent audience around live moments as the crown jewel of the platform. Hence, all of Twitter’s partnerships with publishers, the content providers are being driven around that pillar. The depth of fan engagement around premium video has been another key differentiator.
“I have been driving the region for a little over three years and it has been consistently exciting with the ability to grow and innovate. We have talked about how APAC has been a growth engine for us, even coming out of Q2, we had recovery in markets of Asia to be ahead of the world and some parts of the market were on year-on-year growth territory. So, it has been a really exciting region to lead,” Hari revealed.
Twitter has witnessed 37 per cent year-on-year growth on the monetizable daily active users (DAUs) in the international markets. Talking about the different regions, north Asia offers incredible growth opportunities, especially in terms of gaming. Hari mentioned that south east Asia has been very interesting in case of rapid adaptation of any product. She also added that brand marketers are willing to put their money where the mouth is.
“India has been a very strategic market for a while. We are constantly thinking to bring new product innovations there. We launched Fleets recently and we have seen the usage of Fleets to be very interesting. There is always something unique about that market in terms of how it adapts and embraces content,” Hari highlighted.
Although the growth of digital platforms has been tremendous lately, Social media companies have been under pressure about the proliferation of misinformation on their platforms. Speaking on this issue, Hari emphasised that the platform is highly focused on healthy conversations both globally and regionally. According to her, the understanding of the right combination of automation, content review and human intervention could be an answer to the threat of fake information. The platform used past experiences to keep away misinformation during Covid2019 as well. “It's something we are very committed to. Its one of the largest and biggest focus for us to make sure that the health of the conversations on the platform is strong,” she signed off.
Gaming
MTG gaming chief Benninghoff joins NODWIN board as esports firm primes for IPO
The Gurugram-based esports firm is pursuing a public listing, has returned to profitability and is growing revenues by 42 per cent
GURUGRAM: NODWIN Gaming is moving fast. The Gurugram-based gaming and esports company has launched a pre-IPO fundraising round, appointed UBS as lead adviser for both the round and a subsequent public listing, and landed a heavyweight board director, all in one go.
The new board member is Arnd Benninghoff, executive vice president of gaming at Stockholm-listed Modern Times Group (MTG), who has overseen the group’s strategic investments and portfolio growth since 2014. He is no stranger to building things: Benninghoff has founded and built fifteen companies, served as chief digital officer at ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG, managing director of SevenVentures, and chief executive of Holtzbrinck eLAB. He began his career as a journalist at Deutsche Presse Agentur and various TV networks, holds a Diplom-Kaufmann in business and administration from the University of Münster, and previously sat on the board of Edgeware AB.
The numbers back the ambition
NODWIN is not pitching a story without substance. The company has returned to EBITDA profitability and posted a 42 per cent year-on-year revenue surge, reaching $58.5m in the first nine months of FY2026. The pre-IPO round will combine a primary issuance to fund global expansion through organic growth and acquisitions, alongside a secondary sale to give existing shareholders some liquidity.
Akshat Rathee, co-founder and managing director of NODWIN Gaming, said Benninghoff understands “the entire lifecycle of the gaming and media ecosystem, from the boots-on-the-ground reality of building startups to the strategic complexity of managing multi-billion dollar global portfolios.”
Benninghoff, for his part, said the company “sits at the intersection of sports, entertainment, and technology, making it one of the most exciting players in the global gaming landscape today.”
A portfolio built for the global south
Founded in 2014 by Rathee and Gautam Virk, NODWIN has quietly assembled one of the more compelling esports portfolios outside the Western hemisphere. Its properties include DreamHack India and Comic Con India, and it recently acquired StarLadder, the Ukraine-based tournament organiser behind premier events in CS:GO and Dota 2. The company also serves as a long-term strategic marketing partner for the Evolution Championship Series (EVO), the world’s most prominent fighting game tournament, helping push it into new geographies.
Its geographic focus spans South Asia, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Backers include Nazara Technologies, KRAFTON, Sony Group Corporation, JetSynthesys, and the founders’ investment vehicle Good Game Investments.
What comes next
With UBS running the books, a board freshly reinforced with European media and gaming expertise, and revenue heading in the right direction, NODWIN is laying the groundwork deliberately. The esports industry has burned investors before with big promises and thin margins. NODWIN’s return to profitability, combined with a real portfolio of owned intellectual properties across gaming, music and youth culture, gives it a more credible runway than most. The IPO clock is now ticking.
