iWorld
Cornerstone Sport signs exclusive streaming deal with Loco
Mumbai: Esports team GodLike Esports has inked a deal with streaming and esports platform Loco.
Cornerstone Sport, the management agency of GodLike Esports, facilitated the deal to provide live streaming rights for GodLike’s BGMI, Free Fire, and CODM rosters to Loco. “The two companies will join forces to develop new forms of creative live content that can be delivered to fans in a new and innovative way,” said the statement.
“GodLike is one of the most popular teams in the Indian esports ecosystem and we’re happy to be building a long-term relationship with them,” said Loco co-founders Ashwin Suresh and Anirudh Pandita. “Cornerstone Sport has shown a great commitment towards building the gaming talent ecosystem and we look forward to doing more deals with them to grow the talent pool in India.”
“As India’s top gaming streaming platform, Loco is the perfect partner for a team like GodLike to expand their footprint across the country,” said Cornerstone Sport COO Jogesh Lulla. “We are elated to have facilitated this collaboration which is definitely going to lead to a lot of exciting content and developments in the near future.”
“For us, as a team, we’ve had an inclination towards Loco since the very beginning,” said GodLike Esports founder Chetan Chandgude. “This partnership is an exciting one for us as we now get the opportunity to work with Loco as collaborators, who are also content creators and thus can work towards building something even more engaging for gaming fans in India.”
e-commerce
Visa report tracks rise of India’s affluent, experience-led spending
Affluent base doubles to 130 lakh, travel 58 per cent of elite spends.
MUMBAI: In India’s new luxury playbook, it’s less about owning more and more about living better. A new whitepaper by Visa Consulting and Analytics (VCA) maps a decisive shift in India’s affluent economy, where spending is becoming more intentional, experience-led, and closely tied to personal identity rather than pure income growth.
Titled India’s Affluent Economy 2025–2026, the report draws on a Visa-commissioned Yougov study and VisaNet data across travel, dining, retail and lifestyle categories. The headline number is hard to miss: individuals earning over Rs 10 lakh annually have nearly doubled from 69 lakh to 130 lakh, significantly expanding the country’s discretionary spending base.
But it’s not just about scale, it’s about behaviour. As consumers move up the affluence ladder, discretionary categories are taking a larger share of credit card spends, positioning cards as key enablers of premium, lifestyle-driven consumption.
The geography of wealth is shifting too. Affluence is no longer confined to metros such as Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru, with cities like Ahmedabad, Surat, Jaipur and Lucknow increasingly mirroring metro consumption patterns.
The report highlights a clear pivot from ownership to access. More than 50 per cent of affluent consumers now use cards for elite memberships, while 7 in 10 are drawn to limited-edition drops and curated collections. Increasingly, luxury is defined by seamless access be it concierge-led travel or curated dining where time saved is as valuable as money spent.
Spending patterns reinforce this shift. Among the ultra-elite, travel accounts for 58 per cent of discretionary spends, far outpacing retail and luxury combined at 28 per cent. Cross-border spending penetration stands at 63 per cent, signalling a growing global outlook among India’s affluent.
Closer home, indulgence is becoming routine. Nearly 4 in 5 affluent consumers dine at premium establishments at least three times a year, while 1 in 4 visit luxury venues more than five times annually. Dining spends are also climbing, with Rs 20,000 emerging as a new entry-level benchmark per experience and Rs 50,000 marking premium territory.
Retail, meanwhile, is becoming more selective. Three in four affluent consumers make a high-end purchase at least once a quarter, while one in four shops premium every two weeks. Luxury retail intensity is also rising, with 2 in 5 consumers spending over Rs 5 lakh annually, and a smaller but significant segment exceeding Rs 10 lakh.
Technology and wellness are carving out new roles in this ecosystem. High-end gadgets now see average spends of Rs 60,000 or more per purchase, while ultra-elite consumers are eight times more likely to visit spas and show five times higher engagement with cosmetic stores than non-affluent groups.
The broader takeaway is structural. Affluent consumers are no longer buying products, they are buying ecosystems. Integrated experiences across travel, dining, wellness and payments are becoming central to how this segment lives and spends.
As India’s affluent base expands beyond metros and aligns more closely with global consumption patterns, the real opportunity lies not just in size, but in speed. For brands, the message is clear: relevance will be defined by how early and how seamlessly, they plug into this evolving lifestyle economy.
