MAM
Bright Outdoor offers discounted rates to revive OOH economy during festive season
NEW DELHI: As the out of home (OOH) industry struggles to get back on its feet, Bright Outdoor Media has already come up with plans for the festive season. Bright Outdoor Media CMD Dr Yogesh Lakhani is optimistic that the OOH industry will pick up soon as people make the maximum use of festive season.
With Unlock 3.0 and relaxations given by the government, there has been a slight improvement. Lakhani opines, “The coming phase is a festive phase. Brands have started to invest in OOH advertising but it is still minuscule of what it would have been without Covid2019.”
The pandemic caused several hurdles for the OOH industry. He adds, “For three months there was zero revenue. All the hoardings in MMR were taken by MCGM for COVID2019 awareness. Traffic was almost zero. While the revenue remained a big zero, the expenses continued. The government hasn’t given us relaxations in taxes. On the contrary, it is charging us even for the lockdown period. It has become a matter of survival for some of the hoarding providers in the industry. We, at Bright, stand in solidarity with other OOH providers in this unprecedented circumstance. However, slowly and steadily the traffic is returning on the roads but, as per reports, 50 per cent of the people will still avoid travelling unless urgent. With only 10 per cent workforce permitted, fewer vehicles are on the streets.”
With no movement, he says that the industry saw a 20 per cent drop as only essential service people were allowed to travel during the lockdown. Lakhani shares that the coming two quarters are extremely important for the industry and festivals are the only hope.
“Brands have started to come back but the rate of purchase has drastically reduced. We are eyeing for a very big Diwali as the marketing spends of all other festivals will also be used during that time. Movies will hit theatres in the coming few months. The big-ticket films are due. Bright shall make a change rather than asking for change from others. We are providing a 30 per cent discount and are ready to sit across the table with the clients and get them the best value and offer value additions to their spends and power them to revive as early as possible to bring the economy back to normal,” he shares.
With shopping malls gym and other spaces opening up, Lakhani is optimistic that categories including entertainment industry, pharmaceuticals, online services, educational institutions and real estate will revive and avail OOH services.
Brands
Google nears Nvidia in race for world’s most valuable company
Market cap gap narrows as Google hits $4.65 trillion, Nvidia at $4.86 trillion.
MUMBAI: In the AI gold rush, even the giants are sprinting and Google is suddenly gaining ground. Google is rapidly closing in on Nvidia in the race to become the world’s most valuable publicly listed company, with the gap between the two narrowing sharply amid diverging stock momentum. The tech giant’s market capitalisation has surged to around $4.65 trillion, following a more than 140 per cent rise in its share price over the past year.
That rally has added over $2.6 trillion in value in just 12 months, including nearly $900 billion since January alone. Its stock recently hovered at $381.80, slipping marginally by 0.04 per cent, but still reflecting strong upward momentum.
Nvidia, meanwhile, continues to hold the top spot with a valuation of approximately $4.86 trillion. The chipmaker crossed the $5 trillion milestone in October last year and peaked at $5.27 trillion on 27 April. However, its shares have largely plateaued over the past six months, rising just 0.2 per cent recently to $199.99.
The contrast in trajectories is striking. While Nvidia has seen relatively flat movement, Google has gained over 36 per cent in the same six-month period. Barron’s estimates suggest that if current trends hold, the valuation gap could shrink to as little as $190 million by the time Nvidia reports its first-quarter earnings on 20 May.
Daily momentum paints a similar picture. Nvidia recorded average daily gains of about 0.66 per cent last month, compared to Google’s stronger 1.42 per cent, an edge that could prove decisive in the short term.
Driving Google’s resurgence is its aggressive push into artificial intelligence across its ecosystem, from search and YouTube to cloud computing. The company has already invested $144 billion in capital expenditure over the past two years and plans to deploy a further $490 billion over the next two.
Its cloud division is also gathering pace. Google Cloud reported an order backlog of nearly $220 billion in the latest quarter, with total backlog touching a record $462 billion, around half of which is expected to be realised within two years. The company’s entry into chip sales is also beginning to factor into its growth narrative.
The last time Google briefly topped the S&P 500 by market value was in February 2016, when it edged past Apple for just two days. This time, the stakes and the numbers are far higher.
At the heart of the contest lies a single force: artificial intelligence. As both companies pour billions into infrastructure, chips and platforms, the leaderboard is no longer just about size, it is about who can scale the future faster.
