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Insights Into UTV’s Gaming and Internet Strategy - We Spoke To Biz Heads Of Interactive & New Media

UTV’s Q2 results indicated a a bullish outlook on both gaming and internet businesses.

As per the financial results of UTV over Rs. 250 crores has been invested by UTV in the gaming segment and it has acquired the likes of True Games an MMOG (Massively Multiplayer Online Games) to service the US and Turkey markets. Though the interactive segment reported a loss of Rs. 2.77 crores UTV made statements that it continues to bullish on the growth of this segment. Currently interactive contributes 14% of UTV’s total revenues.

utv gaming internet

The New Media segment i.e. UTV New Media Ventures on the other hand increased its equity stake in ITNation Media Private Ltd which it had acquired recently from 76.50% to 89.04%. The revenues of this segment are pegged at Rs. 6.26 crores which means that this segment has only contributed 4% of the companies revenue. This is again a segment that UTV pointed out as a segment of high growth expectation.

As promised we spoke to the CEO of UTV Interactive Mr.Preneet Malhotra and the COO of UNMV (UTV New Media Ventures) Mr.TN Prabhu and questioned them on UTV’s strategy with respect to both Gaming and Internet to know more on their strategy going forward.

Q1. How important is gaming in the overall scheme of things for UTV? What are you recent investments in the same and what markets are you addressing?

Preneet Malhotra - Gaming is a relatively new but impt vertical within UTV. The vertical has grown inorganically through acquisitions over the last 18 months or so, starting with Ignition to address the Console segment, IndiaGames on the mobile segment and most recently Truegames on the Online segment. While India is our home market and will always be important, our products are globally relevant. While we will directly publish in markets like the U.S., other geographies will be covered through syndication or strategic partnerships.

Q2. What are the revenue models that you are pursuing in the gaming business?

Preneet Malhotra - On revenue models for Console and mobile the same as the rest of the industry. On Online games we have a subscription model in India through India games Games on Demand subscription offering; going forward this will be complemented by our self developed IPs which focus on the Free to play micro-transactions model, which we hold a strong belief in globally.

Q3. Can you elaborate on you web strategy with UTVi? What kind of investment has been made in the same? What is the revenue model for the same?

TN Prabhu - UTVI will concentrate on the following four aspects:

1. Dejargonising- the business and finance space.

2. Interactivity: Making the web more efficient in bringing the web mobile and TV sync together.

3. Newer audience: We will concentrate on bringing newer and younger audience to the site as we believe we can address a lot of this audience on the net

4. Main Street and not just dalal street. We would take up other aspects of life like travel/leisure/shopping etc to address the needs of the visiting audience in a unique and beneficial way.

Q4. ITNation and Techtree - Post acquisition what has been the strategy? What kind of investment will be made to scale this acquired entity?

TN Prabhu - There is no special revision that we have adopted in the core of what Techtree is supposed to do. It is the world's No:2 most popular technology and computer media portal and we would concentrate on enhancing the experience further by better addressing the audience needs for a neutral review of products and services. By virtue of our association with UTVi the TV channel, we would also stretch this experience to a larger and newer audience too.

Q5. Over all how much % of your total revenue do you for foresee being contributed by interactive (gaming) and digital/media i.e. UTVI, ITNation etc? What is the growth % you expect to see in these business over next 3 years?

Both - For 2008, about 22% of our revenues are budgeted from the Interactive business. New media we anticipate revenue contribution starting next financial year. By 2010 we expect Interactive to contribute about 40% and New media to contribute about 4% to the total revenue.

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CitiBank Travelguru Tieup For TravelRewards.co.in - A Marketing Gimmick For Slowdown?

Citibank India and travelguru.com have come together to launch TravelRewards.co.in, a travel rewards platform for its cardholders which will earn them reward points and discounts on their spending on hotel and holiday packages booked via travelguru ofcourse.

travel guru citibank

The benefits that a users gets by registering on Travelrewards.co.in are:

Accrual of triple reward points on hotel and holiday package bookings done using any Citibank credit card through Citibank Travel Rewards.
A unique opportunity for instant online redemption of reward points earned on all Citi-branded cards against purchase of hotel and holiday package bookings.
Convenience of a dedicated toll-free helpline to consult a travel specialist.
An assured discount voucher of up to Rs.5,000/- on registration at www.travelrewards.co.in.

It seems that with the festive and holiday season round the corner both Citi and travelguru want to compound sales by offering a discount and rewards. Im pretty sure the slowdown has had its impact on Travelguru’s hotel booking sales this season as compared to last year. This tie up the way it looks comes especially for this holiday season and this seems to be an attempt to reduce the slowdown impact to whatever extent possible. It looks difficult to foresee if travelguru would actually build out travelrewards.co.in as an actual rewards platform and even include other travelplayers and their rewards on it.

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BigAdda Claims 3 Million Users - Says 50% from Tier II & III

BigAdda the social network backed by Reliance ADAG is claiming crossing the 3 million registered users mark within 15 months of its operation. Besides for the number of registered users it is also claiming that more than 50% of its users come from tier-II & III towns like Pune, Nagpur, Chandigarh, Vishakapatnam, Allahabad etc.

bigadda 3 million

Though the chunk of the users come from tier 2 and 3 towns they are pretty young as well with 85% of the registered users being between the age group of 18 to 30 years with almost 32% being between 21 to 24 years.

BigAdda has always played the entertainment + video strategy. We had analysed this in an earlier post as well and had also mentioned the fact about TIER 2 and 3 users being passive consumers of entertainment oriented video content. BigAdda’s recent partnership with Jivox the video ad network was also directed at monetizing this Tier 2 & 3 video views traffic which comes to the site to consume entertainment and bollywood oriented content.

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