MAM
MMA releases ‘Mobile Ecosystem and ad-Sizing Report’ 2018
MUMBAI: Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) along with media investment group GroupM has released the its ‘Mobile Ecosystem and ad-Sizing Report’ 2018 highlighting an in-depth analysis of India’s mobile reach, smartphone penetration, rural and urban usage pattern, with an emphasis on gaming, and mobile advertising spends. Advocated by GroupM, the report is a collaborative effort by the marketing and mobile industry.
The report offers an insight into how India is moving towards a new era of mobile marketing, seeing rampant growth in both usages and spends. It explores how programmatic works along with updates on the latest trends in data growth, content play, and device status. The report also reveals that Xiaomi became the most shipped smartphone, the first time any smartphone crossing Samsung in the last five years.
The report highlights the ‘mammoth growth’ of Jio, which is now 18 per cent of the total market and has added more than 200 million users to the mobile ecosystem. It also states that rural India is bringing online three times more people than urban areas. “India will cross 500 million mobile internet users by the end of 2018, we foresee that this growth will be led by the rural populace,” it adds.
It mentions that India is in the top three countries in programmatic spends growth with the spends growth of 81 per cent in the past year. Programmatic adoption in the country is growing; standing at 32 per cent right now and poised to grow to 52 per cent in the next 24 months. The propensity for programmatic guaranteed increasing in India – penetration to grow from 6 per cent to 17 per cent by 2020.
Talking about the key verticals in mobile advertising, the report states that gaming, vernacular, OTT video, and OTT audio are leading the segment. “Mobile gaming in India is dominated by freemium games. 2016 saw a 200 per cent increase in gaming app revenue, which will grow at a CAGR of 87 per cent till 2020, crossing the $1 billion mark,” it reveals.
The report claims that vernacular language users in India will grow 12 times by 2021. “In the next five years chat application, government sites, and digital payments will lead to more vernacular content consumers online,” it mentions.
The report further mentions that on-demand video platforms have crossed 100 million users in India with Hotstar leading the market. The user growth on these platforms has got maximum traction from tier 2 and tier 3 cities.
MMA Asia Pacific managing director Rohit Dadwal said, “Mobile Marketing is now a main stream advertising and marketing medium and it is imperative that we start to decipher the various parts of this burgeoning media. We hope the ecosystem study would provide insights to marketers and the industry on the whole on the opportunity and will help in making the right investments for its continuing growth.”
GroupM CEO and Mobile Marketing Association India co-chair Sam Singh noted, “The number of smartphone users is expected to only go up and it just shows how much potential these digital screens have. Hence, we as marketers must understand various facets of mobile marketing. Times are changing fast and we want to enable marketers with the knowledge that can help them in a long run.”
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.
