MAM
Despite tobacco ban, outdoor ad industry projects 15% growth
MUMBAI: Can India’s outdoor advertising industry simply shrug off the projected loss (anywhere between Rs 600 million to 1 billion depending on who you talk to) triggered by the ban on tobacco advertising?
According to Mudra Communication’s associate vice president (media) Shankar Shetty, who manages the firm’s outdoor advertising division Primesite, hoarding rates could fall 5-10 per cent at some prominent locations as a fallout of the ban but by and large the slack will be taken up by other sectors.
Shetty predicts that the industry is going to witness an overall growth of 15 per cent this fiscal.
“Despite the loss of tobacco clients, the hoarding industry will grow from Rs 8 billion to Rs 11 billion this year. There is a great deal of demand, with many cellular firms, TV channels and automobile companies vigorously hugging outdoor advertising these days,” informs Shetty.
“While Star TV spends about Rs 10 crores (Rs 100 million) on outdoor advertising, for Zee TV it is Rs 70 million. Sahara shells out Rs 100 million while Sony spends around Rs 70 to 80 million,” Shetty offers.
Shetty points out that the technology advancements that the hoarding industry has been witnessing have also played a crucial role in boosting the outdoor advertising industry. “Vinyl hoardings and glossy print technologies have brought great breakthroughs in outdoor advertising”, says Shetty.
But Shetty says hoarding rates could fall 5 to 10 per cent in some prominent locations, following the ban. “There is pressure to bring down prices in such locations,” he reveals.
Portland India outdoor advertising agency accounts manager Anuj Kanakia offers a totally different take on it: “Tobacco majors usually occupy strategic locations. So, the demand for these locations is always there.”
A Mumbai-based hoarding owner who owns nine prominent hoarding sites in the city rules out any kind of pressure to bring down hoarding rates, in the wake of the ban.
“We will get the same rate. So we are not forced to bring down the rates. Lots of new enterprises are coming up these days so, we do have ready-customers,” an executive remarked on condition of anonymity.
MAM
Reliance-Meta AI JV names Parminder Singh as CEO
REIL, backed 70 per cent by Reliance and 30 per cent by Meta, targets enterprise AI scale.
MUMBAI: India’s AI ambitions just found their chief navigator and the roadmap looks anything but small. Reliance Enterprise Intelligence Limited (REIL), the enterprise AI joint venture between Reliance Industries Limited (70 per cent) and Meta Platforms (30 per cent), has appointed Parminder Singh as its founding Chief Executive Officer, signalling a serious push to scale artificial intelligence adoption across Indian businesses.
The mandate is ambitious: fuse Meta’s AI capabilities with Reliance’s enterprise reach, AI compute infrastructure, and the nationwide connectivity of Jio to build a full-stack enterprise AI ecosystem. In simpler terms, REIL is positioning itself as both the engine and the highway for India’s AI journey.
Singh brings a heavyweight résumé to the role, with leadership stints across Google, Apple, Twitter, and IBM. His experience spans large-scale digital transformations across Asia-Pacific, most notably at Mediacorp, where he led an AI-driven overhaul as Chief Commercial and Digital Officer.
More recently, he co-founded Clayboxai, an advisory firm focused on building AI fluency within organisations, and Wekamp, an AI-powered community platform currently in pilot both signalling his continued focus on practical, enterprise-led AI adoption.
The appointment comes at a moment when India’s AI narrative is shifting from experimentation to execution. Akash Ambani, Chairman of Reliance Jio Infocomm, described enterprise AI as a “generational opportunity”, noting that Singh’s mix of global expertise and regional understanding makes him central to REIL’s next phase.
For Singh, the decision appears equally deliberate. A conversation with Ambani during a trip to New Zealand, he said, framed the opportunity as one that could shape the future of enterprise AI in India, a proposition difficult to ignore.
At its core, REIL is betting on a gap in the market, enterprises need not just cutting-edge technology, but a partner that understands local business realities. With Reliance’s scale and Meta’s AI backbone, the venture is positioning itself as that bridge.
If execution matches ambition, this is less about launching another tech venture and more about laying the groundwork for how Indian enterprises think, build, and scale with AI in the years ahead.
