MAM
HUL increases ad spend by 19% in Q3
MUMBAI: FMCG major Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL) increased its spending on advertising and promotions for the fourth consecutive quarter ended 31 December as competitive intensity continued to be high.
HUL‘s spending on advertising in the quarter ended 31 December, the third quarter of financial year 2012-13, rose 19 per cent to Rs 8.22 billion from Rs 6.90 billion a year earlier.
The increase in ad spend by HUL has served as a relief to television broadcasters in a year of slowdown. Incidentally, HUL is the largest ad spender in the country.
Broadcasters have looked at FMCG companies to rescue them from a slowdown in their ad revenues this fiscal as certain high-spending categories like financial services have pulled back spends. While certain broadcasters have admitted that ad revenue growth in the first two quarters have been muted, the third quarter has been particularly good.
For the nine months ended 31 December, HUL‘s advertising spend increased by 22 per cent to Rs 24.10 billion from Rs 19.74 billion a year earlier.
HUL said, “The operating context remained challenging during the third quarter with input costs holding firm and high competitive intensity. Advertising and promotion was stepped up and maintained at competitive levels.”
The company increased its spend on advertising for the first time in the fourth quarter of 2011-12 after a slowing economy dented ad spends for a few quarters. In the quarter ended 31 March 2012, its advertising spends were Rs 6.77 billion, up 8.67 per cent from a year earlier.
For the whole of 2011-12, HUL‘s advertising spends was down 3.58 per cent to Rs 26.97 billion from Rs 27.97 billion a year earlier.
During the third quarter of 2012-13, the domestic consumer business of HUL grew by 15 per cent with the underlying volume growth of 5 per cent. Both its home and personal care (HPC) and food & beverages (F&B) businesses registered double digit growth.
HUL said despite intense competition, its net profit increased 16 per cent to Rs 8.71 billion in the quarter ended 31 December from Rs 7.25 billion a year earlier.
HUL chairman Harish Manwani said, “In an environment that continued to be challenging, we have delivered another quarter of broad-based growth and margin expansion.”
Brands
Zscaler, Airtel launch India AI Cyber Research Centre
New hub to boost cyber resilience and trusted AI use
NEW DELHI: As India’s digital engine roars ahead, so do the risks riding shotgun. In response, Zscaler, Inc. and Bharti Airtel have joined hands to launch the AI and Cyber Threat Research Center – India, a national initiative aimed at strengthening the country’s cyber defences and accelerating responsible AI adoption.
The centre is designed as a multi stakeholder platform that brings together industry, government and academia. Its mission is clear: protect critical sectors such as telecom, banking and energy, shield everyday digital users, and future proof India’s fast expanding online ecosystem.
India has long been a major innovation hub for Zscaler, with a substantial portion of its cyber research talent based here. With this new centre, that footprint evolves into a national collaboration engine. The idea is simple but ambitious, build in India, for India, and help power the country’s journey towards a secure and digitally self reliant future.
The timing is telling. India is building digital systems at population scale, not just enterprise scale. That scale has widened the attack surface dramatically. At the same time, cyber criminals and nation state actors are deploying AI to scan, probe and exploit vulnerabilities in minutes.
Zscaler’s research arm, ThreatLabz India, reports millions of infiltration attempts every month. These include espionage campaigns linked to regional geopolitical tensions, 1.2 million intrusion attempts from 20,000 sources targeting 58 Indian digital entities, and a rise in zero day exploit attempts across multiple industries.
In such an environment, perimeter based security models are struggling to keep pace. The new centre aims to push a shift towards secure by design systems and Zero Trust architecture.
Its strategy rests on four pillars: protect through real time intelligence, remediate by working directly with government agencies, facilitate adoption of AI driven security and Zero Trust frameworks, and build a stronger cybersecurity talent pipeline through specialised certifications.
As founding members, Zscaler and Airtel will combine global threat intelligence with local network visibility. Zscaler will deploy a dedicated India focused research team and draw insights from its Zero Trust Exchange platform, which processes over 500 billion daily transactions worldwide. Airtel, meanwhile, will contribute deep visibility into IoT and mobile traffic, helping detect suspicious activity faster and coordinate response across the ecosystem.
Bharti Airtel executive vice chairman Gopal Vittal, said the partnership extends Airtel’s commitment to safeguarding customers and the nation’s digital fabric. He added that the collaboration would address challenges unique to the Indian market and encourage secure and confident digital engagement.
Zscaler chief executive, chairman and founder Jay Chaudhry, said India’s digital ambition cannot be secured with legacy firewalls and VPNs. He noted that a modern Zero Trust architecture is essential for a hyper connected world and that the new centre would harness the scale of Zscaler’s global security cloud while empowering a new generation of Indian cyber defenders.
Additional members from critical public and private sectors are expected to join the initiative in the coming months, expanding its scope and deepening collaboration.
In a world where threats travel at machine speed, India’s answer is to think faster, collaborate wider and build smarter.
