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14Sep By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

Video Streaming Platform HOOQ to Double India Investments

Video-on-demand streaming service HOOQ based in Singapore is doubling its India investments and has changed strategy to focus on Hollywood and English premium video content. This is basically being done to take on Netflix and Amazon prime, and drive growth in India’s highly competitive over-the-top (OTT) video market. “We are doubling up on our investments for India. We are investing in content, manpower as well as technology,” Zulfiqar Khan, managing director at HOOQ India stated. On the new strategy, Hooq will narrow its focus on Hollywood and English premium content, and it has started phasing out regional and Hindi content. India is expected to be among the top 10 OTT video markets in the world in four years. HOOQ will continue its Rs 89 monthly plan. Khan said Hooq’s content p...

Google Neighbourly Rolls Out in Five More Indian Cities

13Sep By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

Google Neighbourly Rolls Out in Five More Indian Cities

The local information app Neighbourly which was launched by Google recently has reportedly expanded to five more Indian cities including Ahmedabad, Coimbatore, Mysore, Vizag and Kota. The app, which helps users with local information like nearby shopping arcades, parks, fitness, food and tuition centres, was launched by Google in beta in May and is now available in seven cities. "With 'Neighbourly', we are able to address the local information needs of India's fast-growing internet users in their neighbourhood," said Josh Woodward, Group Product Manager, Next Billion Users team, Google. The improved version of the app has higher quality voice input, thus, enabling people to ask and respond to questions in their own languages and quicker replies. Also, it has "similar answers" feature ...

12Sep By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

Hotstar Launches in the UK with Two Subscription Plans

One of the most popular Indian video streaming platform Hotstar has launched its services in the United Kingdom. This has been done ahead of the Asia Cup cricket tournament that is starting on Saturday. With this move, Hotstar has now expanded its services in four markets including India, the United States, Canada and now the United Kingdom. The video streaming platform claims that it will offer more than 60,000 hours of television shows, and more than 2,000 Indian movies, along with live sports such as Cricket, Kabaddi, Badminton and Hockey to consumers in the United Kingdom. The service will be made available through two different plans - a monthly plan priced at £11.99 and a yearly plan priced at £59.99. The streaming platform will now have two business verticals - advertising-led...

Reliance Jio and Cisco Systems are Likely to Extent their Partnership

10Sep By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

Reliance Jio and Cisco Systems are Likely to Extent their Partnership

Reliance Jio Infocomm and Cisco Systems that is based in the US are looking to extend their partnership to tap the Rs 50,000-crore strong enterprise market. This is expected to be done with a services portfolio which the Mukesh Ambani-owned telecom firm is planning to launch commercially soon. It was in 2012 that both these companies entered into a strategic partnership across multiple technology areas including deployment of voice over long-term evolution (VoLTE) -- a fourth-generation (4G) technology-based networks -- for its consumer business. “As they (Jio) make enterprise move, Cisco would start working with them closely for the intuitive network, collaboration, cloud and security,” stated an industry source. According to the statements, Reliance Jio would be using the company’s ...

China’s Ctrip May Invest $100 million in Zomato

10Sep By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

China’s Ctrip May Invest $100 million in Zomato

The leading travel-booking platform in China Ctrip is planning to invest in India’s online restaurant discovery and food-delivery platform Zomato as part of a financing round. According to some of the statements, the investment could go up to $400 million (Rs 2,800 crore). The company is expected to pump around $100 million into Zomato. This investment will value the food discovery firm at $1.8-2 billion. It is being stated that Ctrip will be joined by Zomato’s existing investor Ant Financial, an Alibaba affiliate, and a couple of investors. If the deal with Zomato is successfully implemented, it will be significant as the first such bet outside of travel services for Ctrip, which has a market capitalization of over $20 billion. “The discussions with Ctrip are in the last leg, with ...

China’s Fashion Retailer Shein to Expand to Smaller Regions in India

6Sep By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

China’s Fashion Retailer Shein to Expand to Smaller Regions in India

China’s fashion e-commerce player Shein has become quite popular in India just within one year of its presence. For the company, India has emerged as an important market with its mobile app crossing 5 million downloads. The fashion retailer at present delivers to over 15,000 pin codes in tier-I and II cities in India and is now further planning to focus on smaller towns by expanding its services beyond western fashion. “India is a very important market for us and we think there is a huge opportunity in the tier-III and IV towns,” said Malcolm Yam, general manager at Shein India. “This is why we have started partnering with local designers to create fusion and Indo-western outfits for the Indian audience.” Shein has been successful in more than tripling its business revenue in India fo...

Swiggy Launches ‘Swiggy Packaging Assist’ for Packaging Solutions

4Sep By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

Swiggy Launches ‘Swiggy Packaging Assist’ for Packaging Solutions

The food delivery major Swiggy has announced the launch of a marketplace program called ‘Swiggy Packaging Assist’ for restaurant partners. This marketplace is basically launched for allowing packaging solutions to restaurants on its platform as it looks to diversify its play in the food technology sector. The program will offer restaurants the access to a variety of packing solutions for their menu needs with about 30 products, to begin with. It will also connect restaurants with vendors of these materials. Also, it would offer eco-friendly and food grade certified materials including leakproof, sturdy, stackable, eco-friendly and heat insulant packaging materials. Apart from this, the vendors on Swiggy Packaging Assist will offer discounts of up to 5% to restaurants opting for these...

VOOT to Debut the International Market with the United Kingdom

3Sep By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

VOOT to Debut the International Market with the United Kingdom

Indian video-on-demand platform Voot which is owned by Viacom18 is all set to foray into the International market by launching its services in the United Kingdom in November 2018. The service will be launched as a paid service in the United Kingdom, in a partnership with Virgin Mobile. In the initial stage, it will be exclusive to Virgin Mobile users in the country and will be later available to all users through the Apple App Store and Google Play store. The company has further not revealed any information about the deal. Viacom18 is a 51:49 joint venture between Reliance Industries and US media conglomerate Viacom. "Owing to the last mile measurability that the medium provides, our entire content strategy is based on a deep data-backed analysis of the needs and desires of our cons...

Wipro Wins $1.5 Billion Digital Service Contract, The Biggest Contract Ever in The History of Wipro

2Sep By AdityaNo Comments

BUSINESS

Wipro Wins $1.5 Billion Digital Service Contract, The Biggest Contract Ever in The History of Wipro

Wipro Limited (NYSE: WIT, BSE: 507685, NSE: WIPRO), a leading information technology, consulting and business process services company, today announced that it has won a 10-year engagement to provide a comprehensive suite of solutions and services to Lincolnshire, Illinois-based Alight Solutions LLC, a leader in technology-enabled health, wealth, HR and finance solutions. This deal will result in revenues of USD $1.5 to $1.6 billion for Wipro over the tenure. This is Wipro’s largest win to date. This engagement will enable the digital transformation of Alight’s offerings across health, wealth, HR and finance solutions, and enhance the employee experience of Alight’s clients by leveraging Wipro’s industry-leading strengths in digital technologies, cognitive automation and data analyti...

OYO Launches Palette Resorts, Enters Upscale Hotels’ Category

31Aug By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

OYO Launches Palette Resorts, Enters Upscale Hotels’ Category

The pocket-friendly hospitality chain OYO Hotels has announced that it has entered into the upscale hotels' category, that starts with a range of resorts, christened as Palette Resorts. The company stated that It is organizing a range of resorts that will offer exclusively designed staycations. These will basically cater to those people who are in search of an intuitive experience at competitive prices. “OYO’s genesis lies in enabling value-driven, trustworthy experience for its guests while operating high-yielding successful businesses for its asset partners. With Palette by OYO, we are expanding our playfield to upscale resorts, while remaining committed to our core value proposition - location, quality, and price. These are hand-picked, premium accommodations that guarantee a memora...

OYO Rooms Launches its Membership Programme OYO Wizard

30Aug By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

OYO Rooms Launches its Membership Programme OYO Wizard

The budget hotel chain OYO has announced that they have launched a new membership programme known as the OYO Wizard. This programme is basically designed to recognize and reward frequent customers. With this move, OYO aims to deepen and strengthen customer relationships by offering highly-rated and curated hotels to loyal customers at the best price. The company also stated that Wizard is a benefit membership programme which comes with unique benefits that include guaranteed discounts, upgrades and other benefits. Maninder Gulati, chief of strategy, OYO, stated, “OYO Wizard will enable us to take the OYO experience a step further by making it possible for us to engage with customers in a more personal and meaningful manner. We believe that this initiative is an important milestone in o...

RCom Completes Sale of Fibre Assets worth Rs 30 billion to Reliance Jio

28Aug By Gauri SinghNo Comments

BUSINESS

RCom Completes Sale of Fibre Assets worth Rs 30 billion to Reliance Jio

Anil Ambani’s Reliance Communications (RCom) announced that the company has completed the anticipated sale of its fibre assets and related infrastructure assets. The assets were sold worth Rs 30 billion to Mukesh Ambani-backed Reliance Jio Infocomm (RJIO). "With successful completion of the fibre monetisation transaction, 1,78,000 kilometers fibre stand transferred to RJIO," Reliance Communications said. This particular decision marks the wrapping-up of yet another portion of a larger deal between RCom and Reliance Jio in December last year. The deal announced in December 2017, packed in 122.4 MHz of 4G spectrum in the 800/900/1800/2100 MHz bands, over 43,000 towers, 1,78,000 kilometres of fibre and 248 media convergence nodes. Along with this, it was last week that Reliance Commu...