iWorld
Netflix announces unscripted series on Mumbai Indians
MUMBAI: Netflix is targetting India’s love for two things – entertainment and cricket – in one fell swoop. The leading over the top (OTT) platform has announced the production of an original unscripted series revolving around the Mumbai Indians, three-time winner of the Indian Premier League (IPL).
The platform has collaborated with Condé Nast Entertainment for the upcoming production. The show will be available exclusively on Netflix to over 117 million members in 190 countries around the world.
Players from MI will be followed both on and off the field. The show attempts to take a deeper dive into the cricketing values and traditions of the successful IPL franchisee while it embarks on the eleventh edition to attempt a fourth win.
“The series will bring viewers a never-before-seen look at the richest tournament in cricket–the world’s second most-watched sport–covering unseen aspects of the team, the compelling stories and characters that bind them with the vibrant city they call home,” an official statement from the company read.
To make the local connection strong, the streaming giant is coming up with several Indian originals. Netflix India recently premiered Love Per Square Foot, a full-length Hindi romance. The platform will premier Sacred Games on 6 July. Now, it has chosen India’s most popular sport as the central theme for another original.
Also Read:
Localised content the way forward for Netflix in India
Indian content at Netflix to be creatively lead by Disney’s Simran Sethi
iWorld
Airtel crosses 650 million customers to cement its place as world’s second largest telco
The Indian telecoms giant, now spanning 15 countries, is chasing the top spot with satellites, smartphones and mobile money
NEW DELHI: Numbers like these do not come around often. Bharti Airtel has crossed 650 million customers, making it the world’s second largest telecom operator by mobile customer base, according to GSMA Intelligence. Only one rival sits ahead of it. The gap, Airtel intends to close.
Gopal Vittal, executive vice chairman of Bharti Airtel, was characteristically measured. “Achieving the milestone of 650 million customers to be the second largest operator globally is a great responsibility for us to serve our customers better every day,” he said. “Every customer interaction is an opportunity to earn trust and deliver value.”
The scale of the operation is striking. In India, Airtel serves over 368 million mobile customers and was the first operator to launch 5G Plus services. It now reaches over 13 million homes with high-speed internet and a further 15 million households through its Digital TV offering. Its enterprise arm, Airtel Business, runs mission-critical infrastructure across cybersecurity, cloud, IoT and SD-WAN, underpinned by over 400,000 route kilometres of subsea fibre and a string of green data centres. The company has also announced a push into non-banking financial services, using its data insights to offer personalised credit products through the Airtel app.
Africa tells an equally ambitious story. Airtel Africa serves over 179 million customers across 14 countries, with Airtel Money, its mobile financial platform, counting over 52 million users. In a continent where traditional banking remains out of reach for millions, Airtel Money is not a product. It is infrastructure.
Beyond terrestrial networks, Airtel is reaching upward. Partnerships with Eutelsat OneWeb and SpaceX give it access to a constellation of low earth orbit satellites, pushing high-speed, low-latency broadband to remote maritime, aviation and rural areas that cables will never reach.
Airtel’s networks now cover over two billion people across 15 countries. The company that began as an Indian mobile operator has become something rather larger. At 650 million customers and climbing, it is not finished yet.
