iWorld
YouTube: Ten ads clock 2.3 mn hrs of watch time in Q2 ’17, 180 mn Indians watching monthly
MUMBAI: YouTube released the Q2’17 India Ads Leaderboard, a list of the top ads and promoted videos that Indian audiences consumed during the second quarter of the year. These ten ads clocked an astounding 2.3 million hours of watch time, with mobile devices accounting for 82% of the watch time. As per App Annie*, every month, 180 million Indians are watching YouTube on the mobile. The YouTube Ads Leaderboards showcase the most creative ads that people choose to watch. The list represents the top 10 ads on YouTube in India that resonated most with audiences over the past month and celebrates the brands that performed best through a combination of popularity and promotion.
Here are the top 10 most viewed ads of 2017 on YouTube:
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.
