iWorld
Eros Now gets 4-5 million subs from telcos & OEMs
MUMBAI: Folks at Eros are popping bottles of champagne! Eros International’s OTT platform Eros Now has achieved two million paid subscribers worldwide through significant deals in place with all major telecom players in India such as Reliance Jio, Airtel, IDEA Cellular Network and Vodafone.
Between the four platforms, there is a potential reach of 686 million subscribers which is almost 60 per cent of India’s total mobile user base of more than a billion. Jio has announced a user base of 52 million users in just a few months following their launch.
“Our strategy remains to distribute Eros Now, a world class OTT platform, to consumers across telecoms and OEMs with compelling content and product features. We view the recent demonetization move in India as a great opportunity for the OTT business as more consumers are signing up for online and mobile pay systems. I am really excited about the exponential growth in front of Eros Now and am confident we will continue to consolidate our leadership position and first mover advantage,” said Eros Digital CEO Rishika Lulla Singh.
These deals across 20 different telecom operators and OEMs alone provide visibility to a minimum of 4-5 million subscribers annually to Eros Now at an average annual ARPU of $4-5 in India and average annual ARPU of $35 internationally. Since these deals were agreed at various points in time in FY 2017, Eros Now will see the full year benefit of these deals flowing through in fiscal 2018. Most of these contracts are long term deals averaging five years.
With a movie library of over 5,000 films and a further library of 5,000 films being added to this list, Eros Now plans to offer the widest repertoire of Indian movie content across any OTT platform in the world.
In another development, Eros International’s Sanam Teri Kasam was one of the eight chosen films that were screened across 21 cities at the Bollywood Film Festival in Russia. The week-long event flagged off on 30 November.
The film debuts Harshvardhan Rane and Mawra Hocane and is directed by Radhika Rao and Vinay Sapru. Rane was also invited for the film’s screening and was overwhelmed with the love and appreciation the movie received.
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.
