iWorld
Viacom18’s Voot ranked among 2016’s best apps on Google Play
MUMBAI: In its year of launch, Viacom18’s video-on demand platform, Voot has made it to the prestigious -Best Apps of the year 2016 India list on Google Play. Some of the other top apps which made it to the list are Google Allo, Google Duo, Prisma, Dubsmash, Ted, etc.
Every year Google releases a list of best performing applications, games, movies, TV shows, and books on Google Play across the globe. Voot has won under Top Trending Apps and Most Entertaining Apps in the country across categories. In fact, VOOT is the only video-on demand app to have made it to this coveted list and one of the only two apps to feature in two categories.
“To be selected in the list of top trending and most entertaining apps for 2016 by Google Play is a huge honor.It cements our belief that compelling content packaged into a great user experience makes for a winning product, one that is appreciated by consumers and acknowledged by the industry. Having made it to this prestigious list in our maiden year now sets a high benchmark for us,” said Viacom18 Digital Ventures COO Gaurav Gandhi.
Voot was launched earlier this year and currently has over 30,000 hours of content and plans to add between over 12000 hours of content each year. The ad-supported VOD service, besides being the singular destination for the Viacom 18 network content, also has a big focus ondigital Originals, exclusive unseen content around the network’srealityshows as well as the largest repository for premium kids’ content in India.
Within just six months from launch, Voot has already garnered more than 16 million downloads, over 15 million monthly active users with monthly watch time of over 1.3 billion minutes.
iWorld
Akhil Gupta retires as Bharti Enterprises vice chairman after three decades
The man who outsourced Airtel’s network and built Indus Towers leaves behind a telecom industry transformed
NEW DELHI: He was not the most visible face of Bharti. He was, by most accounts, the most consequential one. Akhil Gupta, known within the group simply as AKG, has retired as vice chairman of Bharti Enterprises with effect from March 31st, 2026, closing a chapter that stretched across more than three decades and reshaped Indian telecoms in ways still felt today.
Gupta was there at the beginning, part of the core leadership team that steered Bharti Airtel from a scrappy domestic operator into one of the world’s largest telecom and digital services companies. But it is two decisions in particular that cement his legacy. The first was persuading the industry that a telecom company need not own its own network. His outsourcing partnerships with IBM and Ericsson, considered eccentric at the time, stripped out capital costs and sharpened Airtel’s competitive edge. The model was subsequently copied across the global industry. The second was the creation of Indus Towers, now one of the largest tower companies in the world.
Both initiatives were studied as case material at Harvard Business School, where Gupta himself had studied. A chartered accountant by training and a dealmaker by instinct, he accumulated industry accolades across his career without ever particularly courting the limelight.
Bharti Enterprises, announcing the retirement on LinkedIn, credited Gupta with building the foundation of the group’s success and driving innovation, partnerships and long-term value creation.
The tributes are deserved. Gupta did not just help build Airtel. In many respects, he helped invent the playbook that modern telecoms runs on.
