Brands
Soon to be erstwhile, Philips Lighting launches IoT platform in India
BENGALURU: After dilution of its stake to less than majority by Royal Philips in Philips Lighting, the latter lost its Philips moniker to be renamed as Signify. This change is set to happen in the India subsidiary also, starting 1 January 2019 – the start of Philips group companies financial year. However, the new company will very much continue selling Philips branded products. Signify (the erstwhile Philips Lighting), the world leader in lighting, today launched its new Internet of Things (IoT) platform, called Interact in India, which will enable its professional customers to unlock the full potential of connected lighting for the IoT. The platform delivers new insights to help customers drive operational efficiencies and take more effective decisions. It also supports the company’s strategy to deliver new data-enabled services as value expands from lighting products and systems to services.
Launching the platform in India, Signify’s operations in India vice chairman and managing director Sumit Padmakar Joshi said, “First, we led the way in energy efficient LED lighting, then in connecting lighting to deliver operational benefits for our customers. Now that light points are smart enough to collect data on their performance and the environment around them, we are tapping into that intelligence. By analysing the data from our connected lights, devices and systems, our goal is to create safer cities, energy efficient buildings and industries and smarter retail stores in the country. We are confident that this platform will deliver immense value for our professional lighting customers in India”.
In addition, data from authorised third-parties can also be analysed by Interact. For example, for a municipal authority, news articles and social media posts, reacting to a new lighting installation on a bridge, can be analysed and data sent to a social impact app dashboard that summarises the public sentiment.
Signify has already installed 29 million connected light points worldwide and plans for every new LED product it produces to be connectable by 2020 says a company press release. Potential users include complete cities – and Signify says that it has been involved in more than 1,000 smart projects including cities across the world, business, malls, sports arenas, even one’s own home. Available now are:
Interact Office – enables you to turn your office into a smart sustainable workspace with software that allows you to increase building efficiency and employee productivity.
Interact City – helps improve street lighting, safety, reduce energy consumption, improve efficiency and support your sustainability goals and beautify the urban landscape across roads.
Interact Retail – enables customers to group, zone and schedule connected lighting to create stopping power in stores. It also supports in-store location-based marketing services to increase shopper engagement and indoor navigation to improve staff productivity.
Interact Landmark – aids in managing and triggering light shows with dynamic architectural lighting to help increase tourism, regenerate downtown areas, and stimulate commerce.
Interact Sports – aids in monitoring, managing and coordinating across all lighting infrastructure from a single dashboard from pitch lighting, entertainment light shows, hospitality areas and exterior architectural lighting.
Interact Pro – an intuitive cloud-based software for small and medium enterprises that automates lighting and allows management via the Interact Pro dashboard.
Most of the selling will be on a B2B basis using case studies of previous installations. The global market potential is huge – an estimated 300 billion light points says Joshi.
The home segment has a potential of fifty percent of the new business – while Interact is more of a B2B platform, for the home user, Philips has already launched a brand – Philips Hue. To that effect the company had initiated a 360 degree mass media communications campaign earlier that included a TVC that featured Bollywood actors Ranbir Singh and Shruti Hasan. At present its brand communication is skewed towards print, the 180 Philips Light Lounges, BTL activities and the internet. Signify/Philips Lighting India plans to come up with another campaign in the first quarter of its fiscal 2019 revealed Signify/Philips Lighting India chief marketing manager Sukanto Aich towww.indiantelevision.com. Lowe handled the creative work, while Hawas the media buying.
Brands
UK’s OnlyFans seeks US investor at $3bn valuation after owner’s death
The adult video platform is seeking stability after the death of its billionaire owner
LONDON: OnlyFans is looking for a new partner. The London-based adult video platform is in advanced talks to sell a minority stake of less than 20 per cent to Architect Capital, a San Francisco-based investment firm, in a deal that would value the business at more than $3bn (£2.2bn).
The move is driven by an urgent need for stability. Leonid Radvinsky, the Ukrainian-American billionaire who owned OnlyFans, died of cancer last month at the age of 43, leaving the future of one of Britain’s most profitable privately held businesses suddenly uncertain.
The choice of Architect Capital is not arbitrary. The firm has deep expertise in financial services, which aligns neatly with OnlyFans’ ambitions to offer banking products to its creators, many of whom have long struggled to access basic financial services because of the nature of their work.
The numbers behind OnlyFans are, by any measure, staggering. The platform posted revenues of $1.4bn in the year to 30th November 2024, with a pre-tax profit of $684m, up four per cent on the prior year. Payments to creators totalled $7.2bn over the same period, a rise of nearly ten per cent. Radvinsky personally collected $701m in dividends from the business in 2024 alone, on top of more than $1bn in such payments he had already received. The platform, run through its parent company Felix International, hosts 4.6m creator accounts, with performers keeping 80 per cent of subscription proceeds and the platform pocketing the remaining 20 per cent. It has 377m fan accounts in total.
The current minority stake talks represent a notable scaling back of ambitions. In January, OnlyFans was reported to be in discussions with Architect about selling a majority stake of 60 per cent. Before that, the company had explored a sale to a consortium led by Forest Road Company, a Los Angeles-based investment firm. Neither deal materialised.
OnlyFans has built an enormously lucrative business on content that mainstream finance has long refused to touch. Now, with its owner gone and a $3bn valuation on the table, it is looking for the kind of respectable institutional backing that might finally persuade the banks to take its calls.
