News Broadcasting
HTMT acquires Source One Communications USA
MUMBAI: Hinduja TMT (HTMT) has signed an agreement with Georgeson Shareholder Communications, Inc. to acquire 100 per cent of Source One Communications Inc.USA (SOC) in an all-cash deal of approximately US$ 8.5 million, funded entirely through internal accruals.
SOC has operations in New Jersey (USA), Toronto (Canada) and Manila (Philippines) through a subsidiary called Source One Communications Asia (SOCA).
SOCA is a joint venture company set up in 2001 between SOC (57.5 per cent ownership) and Customer Contact Center Inc. (c3), Manila (42.5 per cent ownership). It may be recalled that HTMT recently acquired controlling interest in c3, which has independent revenue of USD 6.8 Million and for which HTMT paid USD 3.9 million. With the acquisition of SOC and its current shareholding in SOCA, HTMT has consolidated its ownership of SOCA, informs an official release.
SOC had consolidated revenue of USD 15.87 million in its fiscal year ended 30 June 2004. It currently operates a total of 500 call center seats in USA, Canada and the Philippines, which is growing today. Source One has on-shore, near-shore and off-shore call center facilities at USA, Canada and Philippines. It has multi lingual capabilities of French & Spanish besides English. The company has marketing and client management teams located in New Jersey, adds the release.
Together with c3, the total number of seats in Manila amount to over 1000. The total number of clients served by SOC, SOCA and c3 are 22. These clients include multinationals and Fortune 500 companies in different verticals like pharmaceutical products, consumer electronics and household products, financial services, energy and utilities.
Commenting on the SOC acquisition, HTMT COO K observed: “Source One is an excellent strategic fit to our past acquisition of c3. The current acquisition is a definitive step in the evolution of HTMT into a global ITES company. Cross selling BPO, call center services with multi lingual capabilities, and IT in diversified verticals across different geographical locations now provides HTMT a competitive edge against its peers leading to potential scaling and higher profitability. We believe that the scaling up of both SOCA and c3 operations based on excellent customer response to the quality and competitiveness delivered, is likely to considerably improve the topline and bottomline of the entities.”
News Broadcasting
Book Cricket gets a digital century on News18 amid T20 fever
Nostalgic classroom game revamped in English, Hindi plus Telugu on web and app.
MUMBAI: When the T20 World Cup fever hits fever pitch, News18 decides to flip the script straight back to the classroom. The digital news platform has revived the timeless schoolyard favourite Book Cricket as an interactive online game, perfectly timed to ride the cricket wave gripping fans across the globe. The reimagined Book Cricket ditches textbooks for smartphones, blending old-school nostalgia with modern gameplay. Once a sneaky recess pastime played by flicking book pages to score runs, the digital version now offers seamless fun for anyone craving a quick cricket fix between overs.
Available in English, Hindi and Telugu (with more languages planned across News18’s network), the game sits within the platform’s fast-growing gaming portfolio of over 20 titles, all built in-house. It joins event-driven hits like ‘Kursi Catcher’ and ‘Result Rewind’ during the 2025 Bihar Assembly Elections, plus festive specials such as ‘Durga’s Astras’ for Durga Puja and ‘Mouse Modak’ for Ganesh Chaturthi.
News18 Digital CEO Mitul Sangani said, “Gaming is a key pillar of our engagement strategy. At News18, we uniquely combine our newsroom agility with immersive gaming experiences. By blending credible content with interactive formats, we are creating meaningful engagement in an era defined by shrinking attention spans and evolving consumption habits.”
Select titles have expanded beyond News18.com to CNBC-TV18.com and Firstpost.com, reflecting the network’s push to deepen user interaction across platforms. The Book Cricket game is live now at https://www.news18.com/games/book-cricket/.
In a tournament where every boundary counts, News18’s digital Book Cricket proves the simplest games can still deliver the biggest smiles no syllabus required, just pure cricket joy one page-flip at a time.
