Brands
IPL8: Internet services & B2C grab eyeballs; Vodafone tops brands chart
MUMBAI: A total of 52 brands from 28 categories have garnished the commercial breaks between overs and fall of wickets so far in the Pepsi Indian Premier League (IPL) season 8.
Amongst all the categories, Internet services and B2C categories topped the chart with 29 per cent share of ad volume. It must be noted that e-commerce ventures like Amazon, PayTm also fell under the same category. Amazon upgraded itself as a presenting sponsor of the flagship franchisee cricket tournament.
On second spot stood cellular phone services with a share of 11 per cent of ad volume, whereas cellular phones – smart phones category with a 10 per cent share of ad volume was on the third spot. Two wheelers and aerated drinks were ranked fourth and fifth with shares of eight and six per cent respectively.
The pole position in brands chart was acquired by Vodafone cellular phone service (8.4 per cent share) closely followed by Amazon.in (8.03 per cent share). DTH player Tata Sky, which recently launched a multi film series ad campaign called ‘Daily Dillagi’ exclusively for the IPL, ranked third in the list of brands with top ad share. Paytm and Snapedeal.com followed at fourth and fifth spot respectively.
• Parameters
1. Source : TAM Media Research
2. Channel: SONY MAX || SONY SIX || SONY AATH || SONY KIX
3. Period: 8 April – 18 April, 2015
4. Match: Match 01 – Match 14
Commercial Advertising: A period of time when commercial ads are shown during live telecast of the match at events like over change, fall of wicket etc.
• Highlights:
- A total of 57 brands were present during Commercial Breaks of IPL 8 matches on Sony Max, Sony Six, Sony Aath and Sony Kix.
- Twenty-nine per cent share of ad volumes during IPL 8 matches was from ‘Internet Service – B2C & Online Shopping’ category under which brands Amazon and paytm topped.
· Notes:
1. Only Live matches excluding Pre-Mid-Post Match analysis
2. Report based on Pure Advertising duration i.e. it excludes Program Promotion ads, Franchisee ad, Cricket Board (BCCI) and Official Broadcaster (Max)
Brands
Samsung certifies 1,000 Maharashtra students in AI and coding
The South Korean electronics giant marks its first large-scale skilling push in the state, with women making up nearly half the national programme’s enrolment
PUNE: Samsung has put 1,000 students in Maharashtra through a certified training programme in artificial intelligence and coding, the largest such drive the South Korean electronics company has run in the state and a signal that corporate India’s skilling ambitions are moving well beyond the boardroom brochure.
The certifications were awarded under Samsung Innovation Campus (SIC), the company’s flagship corporate social responsibility programme, which launched in India in 2022 with the stated aim of democratising access to future-technology education. The 1,000 graduates were drawn from four institutions: 127 from Savitribai Phule Pune University, 373 from Pimpri Chinchwad University, 250 from D.Y. Patil University’s Ramrao Adik Institute of Technology and 250 from Anjuman-I-Islam’s Kalsekar Technical Campus. All completed training in either AI or coding and programming, the two disciplines Samsung has identified as the critical pillars of the digital economy.
The programme does not stop at technical training. Soft-skills development and career-readiness modules are baked into the curriculum, a deliberate attempt to close the gap between what universities teach and what employers actually want.
“India’s digital growth story will ultimately be shaped by the quality of its talent pipeline,” said Shubham Mukherjee, head of CSR and corporate communications at Samsung Southwest Asia. “As technologies like AI move from the periphery to the core of industries, skilling must evolve from basic training to building real-world capability. This milestone in Maharashtra reflects how industry and academia can come together to create a future-ready workforce that is both globally competitive and locally relevant.”
The Maharashtra drive sits within a rapidly scaling national effort. Samsung Innovation Campus trained 20,000 young people across India in 2025, hitting its stated target for the year. Women account for 48 per cent of national enrolments, a figure the company cites as evidence of its push for an inclusive technology ecosystem. The programme is implemented in partnership with the Electronics Sector Skills Council of India and the Telecom Sector Skill Council.
Samsung, which is marking 30 years in India this year, runs SIC alongside two other initiatives, Samsung Solve for Tomorrow and Samsung DOST, as part of a broader effort to build what it calls a generation of innovators with both the technical depth and the problem-solving mindset to thrive in a fast-moving digital world.
A thousand certified students is a tidy headline. Whether they find jobs that match their new skills is the harder question, and the one that will ultimately determine whether corporate skilling programmes like this one are genuine pipelines or well-photographed gestures.
