BookMyShow Acquires Nfusion for its Audio Entertainment Offerings

India’s largest online entertainment ticketing company BookMyShow has announced that it has acquired Nfusion for an undisclosed amount in an all cash deal. This comes at a time when BookMyShow after redefining the movies and events ticketing space, is well on its path to become the ultimate entertainment destination for users.

Nfusion was set up in Middle East in 2009 by Shoaib G.M. Khan, Sivagurunathan S and Prabhakar Reddy as a HD video-on-demand platform which allowed its users to stream videos online. While Shoaib (alumnus of BITS Pilani), designed, built and managed the end to end media platform, Prabhakar (alumnus of BITS Pilani and Harvard Business School) led the Product, Monetization and Business Development at Nfusion. Sivagurnathan (alumnus of BITS Pilani and IIM Bangalore) designed and managed the information security and infrastructure for Nfusion's media portal.   

Nfusion’s scalable tech solutions, especially CMS (content management system), will be key to the success of BookMyShow’s foray into audio entertainment. The acquisition not just provides BookMyShow a robust tech platform but also an experienced team which will provide a fillip to BookMyShow’s audio entertainment offerings. While the Nfusion team will be headed by Shoaib, Sivagurunathan will lead the Architecture and Devops teams at BookMyShow.

Parikshit Dar, Director, BookMyShow said, “We have already established our video content vertical and are now excited to foray into audio entertainment through our offering ‘Jukebox’. The Nfusion team has brought with them immense experience, innovation capability as well as expertise in building and managing scalable tech solutions.  With them and our music label partners, we look forward to offering the widest variety and possibly the best curated audio content to our users.” 

Through Jukebox, BookMyShow already offers free music downloads to its users. Anytime users book movie tickets on BookMyShow, they are rewarded with music credits which can be redeemed to download their favorite songs on the Android or iOS app. Currently, BookMyShow offers over 1.5 million songs to choose from and has already been witnessing 300% growth m-o-m in the number of downloads.

To lead this vertical, BookMyShow has appointed Aditya Kuber as Associate Vice President – Audio Entertainment. He will report to BookMyShow CEO and Founder, Ashish Hemrajani. Aditya’s role will be instrumental in driving partnerships with music labels and distributors, creating exclusive audio content for BookMyShow users, and product marketing. He brings with him over 17 years of experience and has a demonstrated history of working across media, publishing, digital, and advertising.

BookMyShow had earlier acquired Chennai based online ticketing player TicketGreen in 2013. The company then acquired a majority stake inBengaluru-based social media analytics start-up Eventifier in 2015 and Chennai based fan relationship management (FRM) solutions provider, Fantain Sports Pvt. Ltd. in 2016. In 2017, BookMyShow acquired Hyderabad based online movie ticketing platform MastiTickets, invested in Pune based DIY platform Townscript and also acquired Mumbai based local food and restaurant recommendation engine Burrp.

Samsung Pay Now Available for SBI Debit Cards Across India

State Bank of India and Samsung India has announced the availability of Samsung Pay for higher variants of SBI Debit Card. With this collaboration, ~130 million SBI Debit Cardholders will be able to tap and pay using a wide range of Samsung smartphones at merchant outlets having Card acceptance machines.

Samsung Pay works on 2.5 million Point of Sale (PoS) Card machines across the country through its revolutionary Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST) technology. Samsung Pay is currently available on a wide range of Samsung smartphones, enabling consumers to make offline payments without the need for a physical Card.

The coming together of Samsung - the world’s biggest smartphones company and SBI - India’s biggest bank creates convenience for millions of consumers and provides a major boost to Government of India’s Digital India initiative.

“Both Samsung and SBI are household names in India, and it is a momentous occasion for us to collaborate on Samsung Pay and extend an innovative solution that is transforming people’s lives worldwide. Samsung Pay, with its many ‘Make for India’ innovations, is revolutionising the way people carry out their day-to-day payments & transactions. To help more consumers avail of our innovative payment system, we have also introduced Samsung Pay to our mid-segment smartphones like Galaxy J7 Pro. We recently introduced Samsung Pay Mini to cater to the unique requirements of mid-segment consumers too,” Asim Warsi, Senior Vice President, Mobile Business, Samsung India, said.

Rajnish Kumar, MD, National Banking Group, SBI said, “Bank aims to be the Banker to Digital India and has been at the fore-front of all digital initiatives in the banking space. We are committed towards increasing the share of digital initiatives in products, services and transactions, supported by technologically advanced backend operations. Tie-up with Samsung Pay is one such initiative which will give our customers an additional reason to go digital.’’

Samsung Pay, launched in India this year, has already received overwhelming response from consumers, who have instantly fallen in love with its Simple, Secure & Everywhere proposition. Samsung Pay comes with Samsung KNOX, Samsung’s defence-grade security system that is designed to keep consumers’ transactions safe.

Available on Galaxy J7 Pro

Samsung Pay will also be available on the newly-launched Samsung Galaxy J7 Pro smartphone, which comes with superior specs - 5.5” FHD sAMOLED display, 13MP + 13MP camera configurations and a stylish metal unibody design. The availability of Samsung Pay on Galaxy J7 Pro smartphone will increase its adoption as Galaxy J7 Pro is the most affordable smartphone in Samsung’s smartphone range with Samsung Pay functionality.

Galaxy J series is India’s most popular smartphone series, accounting for one in four smartphones sold in the country. Galaxy J7 Pro is now available across retail channels at INR 20,900.

Samsung Pay is also available on: Galaxy S8, Galaxy S8+, Galaxy S7 edge, Galaxy S7, Galaxy Note 5, Galaxy S6 edge+, Galaxy A5 (2016), Galaxy A7 (2016), Galaxy A5 (2017), Galaxy A7 (2017) and Galaxy A9 Pro.

SBI Debit Card - Samsung Pay Offer

Samsung Pay consumers holding eligible SBI Debit Cards can avail a flat INR 100 cashback on minimum transaction amount of INR 500. The cardholder can avail maximum cashback of INR 500 per Card, during the offer period i.e., from August 01, 2017 till August 31, 2017.

Samsung Pay

Samsung Pay is a complete payments platform. Apart from cards, Samsung Pay users can also make fast and secure UPI payments through P2P money transfers and also QR code scan and online payments wherever UPI payments are accepted. Consumers can add their SBI accounts and accounts of all banks which are on UPI to Samsung Pay. Samsung Pay also supports wallet payments - Paytm on Samsung Pay and Mobikwik and Paytm on Samsung Pay Mini, which is designed to cater to the unique requirements of Indian mid-segment consumers. Samsung Pay Mini provides a comprehensive platform for UPI and e-wallets. Samsung Pay will continue to build and bring to market other payment features going forward.

Samsung Pay works with Samsung’s patented MST technology as well as with Near Field Communication (NFC). MST replicates a card swipe by wirelessly transmitting magnetic waves from the supported Samsung device to a standard card reader. Through MST, Samsung Pay will work seamlessly on a majority of PoS terminals in India. Samsung Pay, fortified with three levels of security—fingerprint authentication, card tokenization and Samsung’s defence-grade mobile security platform Samsung KNOX—makes for an invulnerable payment service.

Bengaluru, Mumbai, NCR Record Strong Office Rentals in Q1 2017

Office rentals in the cities of National Capital Region, Mumbai and Bengaluru will continue to outperform thanks to strong demand from office space occupiers, according to a recent RICS’ India Commercial Property Monitor. Bengaluru is in fact expected to do better than the other two cities.

RICS’ India Commercial Property Monitor is a quarterly guide to the trends in the commercial property investment and occupier markets. The guide is based on survey questionnaires sent out to RICS members over a month long period ending 10 July, 2017. Respondents were asked to compare conditions over the latest three months with the previous three months and give their views on the outlook.

Office rental forecasts over the next twelve months have been lowered slightly to 3.3% in Q2 from 3.5% in Q1 of 2017. This is due to a moderation in rent expectations for prime office space, though office rental forecasts are still seen up 6.3% over the next year.

“Strong economic growth is generating demand for office space.The last two years 2015 and 2016 have been quite good for the segment with pan India office vacancy at its lowest over 5 years. Vacancy levels in some cities such as Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad and Pune is around 5-10%. On the supply side, there is a shortage of grade A office space. It is less than half of the current office stock across top eight cities at 280 million sq ft. The gap between demand and supply of good quality office space Is keeping office rentals strong,” said Sachin Sandhir, Global Managing Director-Emerging Business, RICS South Asia.

Retail properties in NCR are however expected to see significantly less rental value appreciation over the next year than their counterparts in Bengaluru and Mumbai. The Q2 2017 results show occupier demand continuing to rise in the office sector, while, similar to Q1, respondents reported virtually no change in demand across the industrial and retail segments over the quarter.

investor demand was flat in Q2 though investment enquiries for offices increased during the quarter. This trend was mirrored in the data on enquiries from foreign buyers. The supply of property for investment purposes was unchanged for the third consecutive quarter across all three market segments.

Respondents are modestly bullish on capital values over the next three months. However, this is mainly driven by the office segment as the outlook for the industrial and retail segments are flat over the next quarter. Respondents however do expect capital values to increase across all market segments over the next year.

When viewed at the city level, respondents revised capital value forecasts over the next year lower, particularly in Bangalore. Headline capital values are now seen increasing 3.9% over the next year after contributors forecast a 6.1% appreciation last quarter. However, this market is still seen outperforming Mumbai and the NCR where headline capital values are seen up 3.8% and 2.9% over the next twelve months, respectively.

The Occupier Sentiment Index inched higher to +7 from +6 in Q1. This slightly positive reading indicates marginally positive momentum in the occupier market.

The Investment Sentiment Index moderated slightly from +9 in Q1 to +6 in Q2. This is consistent with only modest overall momentum behind the investment market.

HP Kicks Off Hai Jahan Bharosa Hain Wahan in Karnataka

Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited has kick started their customer awareness campaign, Quality & Quantity (Q&Q) Assurance, from July 20, 2017, across all the HPCL outlets in Bengaluru region.  The month long drive is conceptualized to educate the customers on Quality and Quantity aspects of petroleum products and win the assurance of the patrons by inviting them to check the quality and quantity of petrol and diesel sold at the outlet before filling their vehicles.  The campaign is currently underway in Bengaluru Urban, Bengaluru Rural, Tumakuru, Kolar, Chikkaballapur, Chamrajnagar, Mandya and Ramanagara Districts.

Subhankar Datta, DGM Retail – Bangalore Regional Office of HPCL says, “We have come out with a dedicated slogan for this particular campaign called HP Hai Jahan Bharosa Hain Wahan, which translates our core objective of delighting our customers with competent, committed and transparent services.  I invite everyone to take this opportunity and participate in this drive and walk away confident about our product and services.”

Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited is a Navaratna PSU Oil Company, which operates the second biggest product pipeline network in India. The company strictly adheres to the Quality and Quality assurance and follows standard operating practices.  All of their dealers, forecourt supervisors and filling station attendants undergo rigorous training to impart a pleasant service to its customers.  A dedicated team has been chosen, trained and located at HP outlets, who will demonstrate the HP Quality and Quantity assurance and will be more than happy to answer customers’ questions.  The campaign is promoted by company officials and dealers with full enthusiasm and the response thus far from the customers have been overwhelming.

Chicco Breast Pump: Giving Your Milk is as Simple as Giving Your Love

Today’s modern mothers are constantly switching their daily roles. They are managing different transitions of life like taking care of baby while juggling their work deadlines and family commitments. For new-age mothers, sometimes it becomes difficult to breastfeed as often as they need to. In such situations, a breast pump is quite useful to keep your baby’s belly full while you take care of your daily tasks.

According to Dr. Laura Cintelli (Obstetrician), “The milk of each mother is the perfect food for her baby. It contains all the nutritional principals required for growth up to 6 months of age and is recommended by the WHO* even after weaning. Besides supporting the growth of our little ones to grow well, breast milk also protects them from infection s, obesity and diabetes. When you go back to work or if you have to briefly go out, you can use a breast pump to avoid losing all these benefits. This useful equipment will serve not only to allow you to continue to give your baby your precious milk, but also to avoid losing the stimulation of your breasts if at the feeding time, you cannot be with your baby.”

Chicco offers NaturalFeeling range of Breast pumps and other breast-feeding accessories to make this experience peaceful for a longer duration for the new-age mothers. Chicco’s Manual Breast pump extracts milk effectively due to itsChicco Exclusive System and gently with its extra-soft silicon cup. Moreover, its ergonomic handle, which is made of BPA free material provides maximum comfort to mother’s hand while pumping.

Chicco NaturalFeeling Electric Breast pump offers innovative features like memory function and adjustable expression to make pumping a wonderful experience.

According to Mr. Rajesh Vohra, CEO, Artsana India, “We at Chicco have always had the perfect relationship with mothers all around the world. We share every single day with them during an extraordinary period of their lives. A mother’s love for her children knows no boundaries and she will do whatever it takes to find the best for them. Our passion for creating solutions for mothers is similarly limitless. And when it comes to looking after babies, neither of us is prepared to compromise. We at Chicco have a holistic vision of babies and of the world they inhabit.”

Chicco’s vast experience in the infant world is consolidated in Osservatorio Chicco (Baby Research Center) that offers specific solutions to accompany children through every stage of their growth, day after day, for 36 months.

Health institutions recommend breastfeeding as the best choice for babies. It is essential to support mothers, offering them practical solutions to encourage the continuation of breastfeeding even in the presence of difficulties. Chicco NaturalFeeling breast pumps are a practical solution not only for mothers who have difficulties but also for working mothers, stay-at-home mothers who want to take out time for them.

Packaging –

NaturalFeeling Manual Breast Pump - Price: ­­­­­Rs. 2499

NaturalFeeling Electric Breast Pump - Price: ­­­­­Rs. 10990

Exaring Automates Entertainment Services Delivery Platform with Juniper Networks’ Solutions to Drive Digital Transformation

Juniper Networks, an industry leader in automated, scalable and secure networks, today announced that Exaring, a digital service provider based in Germany, is using Juniper Networks’ high-performance solutions to create a scalable and fully-automated infrastructure for its next generation IP-based TV services. 

Exaring’s platform offers German households diverse broadcast services in the cloud via a smart device. The company operates a comprehensive fiber infrastructure exclusively for the transmission of IP entertainment services, combining high-definition TV quality with the convenience of easy-to-use apps and the flexibility of the web. Exaring has also created its own TV platform waipu.tv.

Exaring, with the flexible and automated network architecture created by Juniper Networks’ technology, can integrate and deploy new services in a very short time, achieving lower total cost of ownership (TCO) and meeting consumers’ high demands for its IP TV playout platform. The automated platform also allows the company to monitor and dynamically adjust its network performance in real-time, based on data intelligence and analysis.

News Highlights:

• Juniper Networks QFX Series switching technology was selected by Exaring to deliver automated television services to end-users, including high-definition (HD) and 4K (ultra HD) video, via customers’ existing internet connections without additional installations. 
• Exaring’s functions run in a cloud environment created by Juniper’s QFX switches, which are high-performance, high-density switching platforms with open architectures that serve as universal building blocks for automated, programmable fabric architectures. This environment supports applications that move hundreds of gigabits of video.

• Exaring deployed the Juniper Networks’ QFX10000 at its data center edge, which has IPv4 and IPv6 peering functionality and low latency transport, together with Juniper’s ASIC functionality, such as Virtual output Queueing (VoQ) technology.
• The overall switch network infrastructure is underpinned by Junos OS, Juniper’s single operating system for centralized management, which further streamlines and simplifies Exaring’s network operations. The automation capabilities of Junos OS, running on QFX Series switches, integrates seamlessly into Exaring’s broader orchestration and automation infrastructure.

AT Conceptualized Free Android App that Works in 11 Indian Languages

Agrahyah Technologies (AT) is been conceptualized by three friends turned entrepreneurs - Sreeraman Thiagarajan, Rushabh Vasa, and Uppal Shah. The young Turks are developing AT as software technology start-up to build a suite of apps (applications), products, and content ground-up for the millions of Indians who are non-English literates.

Agrahyah Technologies aim to make technology useful for everyone and remove English as a barrier for getting full advantages of the internet. Calculator for India is our first product. It is fully functional and free calculator that is available in 11 Indian vernacular languages including, Hindi, English, Tamil, Kannada, Marathi, Urdu, Bengali, Gujarati, Malayalam, Punjabi, and Telugu.

In past six months since inception, AT is working to build apps and content in Indian vernacular languages which cater to the masses in a culturally and a contextually relevant way. Technology giants and government are working to get more people online by increasing connectivity, but it raises an acute challenge in terms of inclusion. Of the approximately 400 million plus Indian users online, only 175 million users are comfortable with English.

The World Wide Web is dominated by English. India has over 400 million Hindi literates but WWW has less than 0.5% of Hindi content online. These stark differences will grow further if the language divide is not addressed adequately and urgently.   

There is a huge gap in the availability of high quality apps and content in vernacular languages. This is where AT steps in to build a bridge with a unique approach of building high quality apps and content for users in vernacular languages.

Our philosophy at AT is to be culturally and contextually relevant for each language. For instance, AT has developed 'Calculator For India' a free Android app that works in 11 Indian languages and also has GST calculation feature.

This is the first step to build multi-vernacular web for the growing number of Android users in India. AT is also launchingHotFridayTalks.com later this month, which is a Lifestyle and Entertainment portal that aims to be a tech lead, mobile first, new age hangout for youth. The vision is to develop a lifestyle portal with content written in each of the vernacular languages rather than merely translate it.

Another application in the works is called “MyNews”. An Android app to keep track of people, places, and things we care about in a language of our choice. For example the app lets you set a tracker for ‘Mysuru’ in Kannada or 'Narendra Modi' in Bengali. Once set, all the relevant news will be smartly delivered to the user and they can even choose to read it without ads and save it offline.

AT is a boot-strapped startup based in Mumbai. The men behind the dream include Sreeraman Thiagarajan, who’s been in the business of marketing for the last 15 years. An active Google evangelist, he has been a part of developer relations programs for past four years and listed as Google Expert. 

Rushabh Vasa started a full service digital marketing agency when India had less than 50 million internet users, and has come a long way in digital marketing, and remains the technology lead behind the idea. 

Uppal Shah is the staunch businessman, who has taken on a challenge to add technology to each arm of his vast family business which has presence from Kolhapur to Dubai.

With a vision to make technology accessible to everyone, the trio has taken the path less travelled on India’s digital landscape, by planning to localize the internet for the non-English masses in a country where the dialect changes every 50 kilometres, they have taken on an audacious task to break the language barrier and make Digital India truly inclusive.