MAM
Brands actively reaching out for partnerships since Covid2019: NODWIN’s Sidharth Kedia
NEW DELHI: The esports ecosystem might witness a slump of 15-20 per cent post-covid, but the numbers will still be 200 per cent higher than the pre-Covid2019 times, NODWIN Gaming group CEO Sidharth Kedia told Indiantelevision.com. The five-year-old gaming platform is one of the largest esports companies in India and is popular for pioneering several cutting-edge technology innovations in e-sports broadcasting.
Kedia shares that the esports ecosystem witnessed a growth of about 300 per cent during the past quarter. “If I talk about NODWIN, our property India Premiership saw 3000 people registering for the event in the summer of 2019. This year, the number was 57,000. And going by the early indication shared by our streaming partner Disney+ Hotstar, the viewership rose by three times from the last season,” he highlights.
Addressing the speculations about the expected dip post Covid2019, he notes, “If we look at the rise of e-wallets and digital payments during demonetisation and the subsequent dip in their popularity once the situation settled, we noticed that the users still remain on the higher end of the pre-demonetisation times. Same is with esports. Yes, we may expect a 15-20 per cent dip in numbers but it will be after a 300 per cent growth.”
Not just the number of users, the interest of brands has also increased in the e-sports category, given the magnanimous popularity it's enjoying.
“Brands have definitely gained interest in esports. Earlier, we used to spend months trying to get in touch with brands and striking partnerships. But in the past three months, I have got a call from 37 new clients, asking me how they can invest in esports,” shares Kedia.
“Yes, the marketing budgets are low these days; if a brand used to spend Rs 100 on marketing earlier, it is just spending Rs 20-25 now. But, while I was getting only three per cent earlier, now, the brands will be sparing 30-35 per cent for us from those 25 rupees. All the brands who want to reposition themselves or are trying to get the attention of the youth are investing in esports and it will continue even after Covid2019,” he elaborates.
Kedia also put the spotlight on the blurring lines between India and Bharat when it comes to e-sports in today’s time, attributing the growth in popularity of the platforms to increasing mobile penetration.
“Bharat population is much bigger on mobile platforms. Going by Google trends, if you search top ten cities using PubG mobile, most of them will be tier 2 and tier 3 cities. Even for us, when we streamed our latest tournament on YouTube, which reached around 40 million people, the top two languages in which users accessed the content were Hindi and Tamil. We got three million views on our Hindi streams for PMPL and the views for English were less than 10 per cent of it,” Kedia quipped.
To keep this momentum of growth going, Kedia and his team are investing highly in technology like distributed broadcast architecture using cloud technology. “We will continue to experiment with AR, VR, and mixed reality. Another important goal for us is to minimise the number of people in our offices and we are working towards that.”
Kedia believes that esports has a great future in India and is also planning to invest in talent management going ahead. To popularise NODWIN, he is actively indulging in brand partnerships, sponsorships, and attending various events and webinars to reach out to potential trade partners.
Brands
Estée Lauder to shed 10,000 jobs as new boss bets on digital shift
The cosmetics giant raises its profit outlook but stays silent on a possible merger with Spain’s Puig, as job cuts deepen and a three-year sales slump weighs on the turnaround
NEW YORK: Stéphane de La Faverie is not done cutting. Estée Lauder announced on Friday that it plans to eliminate as many as 3,000 additional jobs, taking its total redundancy programme to as many as 10,000 roles, up from a previous target of 7,000 announced a year ago. The company, which owns La Mer, The Ordinary, Tom Ford, and Aveda, employs roughly 57,000 people worldwide. The mathematics of what is now being contemplated is stark.
The fresh round of cuts is expected to generate a further $200 million in savings, bringing the total annual savings from the programme to as much as $1.2 billion before taxes. That money, De La Faverie has made clear, will be ploughed back into the turnaround.
A CEO in a hurry
De La Faverie, who took the helm in January 2025, inherited a company that had endured three consecutive years of annual sales declines. His response has been to move fast and cut deep. A significant portion of the latest redundancies reflects his push to reduce headcount at US department stores, long a cornerstone of Estée Lauder’s distribution model but now a channel in structural decline. In their place, he is accelerating the shift toward faster-growing online platforms, including Amazon.com and TikTok Shop, a pivot that is reshaping not just where Estée Lauder sells but how it thinks about its customers.
The numbers are moving in the right direction
Despite the pain, there are signs the medicine is working. Estée Lauder raised its profit outlook for the remainder of the fiscal year, guiding for adjusted earnings per share in the range of $2.35 to $2.45, above analyst estimates and a notable step up from the $2.05 to $2.25 range it had guided for in February. Organic net sales growth is expected to come in at 3 per cent, the company said, at the high end of the range it set out in February.
The share price tells a mixed story. After De La Faverie took charge, the stock surged nearly 60 per cent, buoyed by investor optimism that a longtime company insider could finally arrest the decline. But 2026 has been rougher: the shares have fallen 27 per cent this year, weighed down by disappointing February results and the overhang of unresolved merger talks with Spanish beauty giant Puig Brands SA. The company gave no additional details about those discussions on Friday, leaving the market to guess.
Silence on Puig
The proposed tie-up with Puig remains the most consequential unknown hanging over Estée Lauder. A deal with the Barcelona-based group, which owns brands including Carolina Herrera and Rabanne, would reshape the global luxury beauty landscape. But with nothing new to say and a turnaround still very much in progress, De La Faverie is asking investors to trust the process.
Three years of sales declines, 10,000 job cuts, and a merger that may or may not happen. At Estée Lauder, the overhaul has barely started.
