iWorld
MX Player reveals slate of new series for October 2022
Mumbai: MX Player is geared up to refresh festive moods with its latest slate of crowd-favourites, critically acclaimed and much anticipated international shows from all around the world, dubbed in Hindi and other regional languages. Here’s a list of everything they’re bringing this October:
MX VDesi Shows:
Love Story of Court Enemies
The Mandarin drama follows two sisters, Zhao Yu Xing and Qiu Qi, who were separated after being displaced by rebels that sought to kill them. The sisters have to navigate court politics and conspiracies as well as come to terms with their own hearts. All 25 episodes of the series are now available in Hindi exclusively.
Playful Kiss
This series is a romantic comedy about a high school girl named Oh Ha Ni who moves into the home of her crush, Baek Seung Jo, after her house is destroyed. The award-winning Korean drama follows their relationship through high school, college, and beyond. Will she be successful in winning Seung Jo’s heart?
The series will be available in Hindi from 5 October onwards.
Once Again
A Korean story of the eventful Song family, who can’t get a day of peace with their neighbours in Yongju Market. Song Young Dal, a frugal father, and Jang Ok Boon, a pushy mother, have been married for a long time and are worried about the future of their four children—one of which is set to get married and two of which are divorcees. Partway through, enigmatic kimbap restaurateur Kang Cho enters the battle and establishes a location in the Yongju Market. How will the other characters be affected by her appearance?
The show will be available in Hindi from 8 October onwards.
Ni Chang
Set in the Ning dynasty, the story revolves around Xie Xiaoni, who aspires to become a business woman. Xiao Ni vows to seek vengeance for her family after they were framed and murdered by the Su family. She assumes the name of Ni Chang and enters the Yunjin Pavilion to learn embroidery skills. Over time, with hard work, she managed to establish her position in the industry. Will the Su family find out her truth?
The show will go live on 12 October. Originally in Mandarin, the show will be available in Hindi.
The Secret Life Of My Secretary
T&T Mobile Media’s team 1 leader, Min Ik, is a brilliant perfectionist with a heart of stone who often relies on his fiery-tempered secretary, Jung Hee. She faithfully performs the chores that her abusive employer assigns her, but she is not afraid to express her opinions. What is the future of this hot and cold relationship?
The 16-episode Korean drama will be available in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Bengali, Kannada, and Malayalam, starting on 15 October.
The General’s Daughter
This Filipino show is based on a military nurse, Rhian Bonifacio, who is a second lieutenant in the Philippine Armed Forces. However, she has a secret: she was trained to be a spy in the army by her adoptive father, Tiago Guerrero, to exact revenge against their mortal enemy, Marcial De Leon, a high-ranking general. Bound by love towards the family she grew up with, she finds herself amidst the feud of two families: her fake family and the real.
The show will be available in Hindi from 19 October onwards.
Sky Castle
A satirical series that closely looks at the materialistic desires of upper-class parents in South Korea and how they ruthlessly secure the success of their families at the cost of destroying others’ lives. The drama revolves around the lives of housewives residing in a luxurious residential area called SKY Castle (a reference to the elite universities) in suburban Seoul, where wealthy doctors and professors live. The wives are determined to make their husbands more successful and to raise their children to be top students who will be accepted at the best universities, so they use every possible way to achieve that. Watch the story unfold over the course of 20 episodes starting from 22 October onwards in Hindi.
Hostages
In this Israeli crime thriller, Yael Danon, a renowned surgeon, is seen getting ready to operate on the Israeli president and is startled when a gang of four masked men kidnaps her family and gives her an ultimatum: she is told to assassinate him during the surgery in order to prevent the murder of her family. Everything goes awry the night before. Yael tries to save both the president and her family before it’s too late. Will she succeed?
All 22 episodes will be available in Hindi from 26 October onwards.
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.
