iWorld
Paytm, Tencent Holdings to invest $100 mn in MX Player
MUMBAI: Indian e-wallet and payment gateway giant Paytm and Chinese conglomerate Tencent Holdings have reportedly planned to invest about $100 million in Times Internet-led streaming platform MX Player. Although the talks have reached final stages but some investment terms might still change.
Tencent launched its first overseas video streaming service last month in Thailand as it is looking at expanding abroad. It has also invested in movies, television shows and other content to increase user engagement. With the MX Player deal, it will be able to make its presence in India where online streaming services are booming since the last 2-3 years.
As per a PwC report, India’s content streaming market is projected to grow at an annual rate of 22 per cent to Rs 120 billion ($1.7 billion) by 2023. Within a few months of its launch, the newest OTT player of India has gained high traction. According to a recent report revealed by Times network, it witnesses over 1.2 million new installs every day while it is already installed on over 600 million devices globally. Moreover, it is also present in over half of all Indian smartphones.
While Paytm reported 5.5 billion transactions in the year ending March 2019 with a gross value of over $50 billion, the MX Player deal will help it to user increase engagement.
iWorld
Prashant Iyer joins Sony LIV as head of marketing
The former Netflix India director grew the streamer’s social following from half a million to 55m
MUMBAI: Sony LIV has poached one of India’s most battle-hardened streaming marketers. Prashant Iyer, who spent nearly eight years at Netflix building its India operation into a social-media juggernaut, has joined the platform as head of marketing.
Iyer leaves Netflix having done rather a lot. He grew the streamer’s India social community from roughly 500,000 followers to over 55m, delivered engagement and organic impressions double those of rivals, and ran more than 250 campaigns across titles, brand and partnerships. In his final role as director, marketing, he sat on the core leadership team credited with driving 15-times revenue and subscription growth over eight years. He also served as the only director-level social leader across Asia-Pacific, a regional mandate that stretched across a 200m-plus follower community.
Before Netflix came Nike, where Iyer spent three and a half years straddling digital brand commerce and key account management, including ownership of Myntra, the brand’s largest digital account in India. Earlier still, Titan Company gave him his first crack at brand and digital marketing.
Sony LIV, which has been muscling for position in an increasingly crowded streaming market, has landed a marketer who knows precisely how to build an audience from scratch and, just as importantly, how to keep it. For a platform still chasing the kind of cultural cachet Netflix India took years to earn, that is not a bad place to start.
