Bezos vs Ambani 🏏, UPI hits a new milestone 👏🏻, Facebook ⚔ TikTok
Bezos poised to clash with Ambani, UPI records 5 Bn transactions in a month, FB funded anti-TikTok drive, Delhivery partners with Ajio, Funding Deals & more.
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Jeff Bezos poised to clash with Mukesh Ambani in cricket auction🏏
Jeff Bezos and Mukesh Ambani, billionaires who have been battling for years in India, are headed for a ferocious new clash over rights to the country’s cricket matches.
This week, the Indian cricket league unveiled guidelines to auction off media rights and they seem designed to raise bids and tensions. For the first time, the rights to broadcast matches on television and to stream them online will be sold separately, opening the door to Amazon.com Inc. and its Prime video service. Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd. is also determined to win, as the companies fight for e-commerce supremacy in one of the world’s fastest-growing markets.
The event, which starts on June 12, could see bets of $7 billion or more. At stake are the rights to show dozens of Indian Premier League matches between 2023 and 2027, with separate auctions to decide the winners for livestreaming and broadcasting in different regions.
Live streaming matches is an effective way of reaching the country’s 1.4 billion people, who are increasingly watching sports on their mobile devices.
🎬 Also Read: OTT to be $13 Bn market in a decade
UPI hits a new milestone of five billion transactions a month in March👏🏻
As digital payments gain traction, unified payments interface (UPI) transactions in the country have breached the 5 billion mark in March, as per the latest data released by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).
NPCI, which operates UPI along with other payments infrastructures including Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS), Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AePS) among others said that total UPI transactions recorded stood at 5.04 billion (or 504 crores), for a total value of Rs 8.88 lakh crore, in March this year.
In comparison, total UPI transactions in February stood at 4.5 billion (or 452 crores, with a total value of Rs 8.26 lakh crore processed by the infrastructure. Usually, February witnesses a dip in overall UPI transactions, owing to a lesser number of days as compared to March.
According to NPCI’s estimates, 75% of the total retail transactions in the country continue to be below Rs 100 in value. On UPI, almost 50% of the total offline transaction is up to Rs 200 in value.
Hot Shorts⚡
Non-banking financial company Finova Capital has raised $65 million from Norwest Venture Partners, Maj Invest and Faering Capital.
Chennai-based digital supply chain startup Wiz Freight has raised Rs 275 crore in a funding round led by Tiger Global with participation from Axilor, Foundamental, Arali Ventures, Stride Ventures and Alteria Capital.
OneCode, a platform to digitise the sales ecosystem, has raised $13 million in Series A funding led by General Catalyst.
Facebook parent funded anti-TikTok drive⚔
Meta Platforms, facebook's parent, is paying one of the biggest Republican consulting firms in the country to orchestrate a nationwide campaign against TikTok, according to a Washington Post report.
Targeted Victory, according to the Post, contracted with dozens of public relations firms across the US to help "sway public opinion against TikTok" by planting local news stories and helping place op-eds targeting TikTok around the country, the story says.
The campaign reportedly includes placing letters in major US news outlets and promoting negative stories about TikTok, allegedly using the type of tough tactics familiar to Washington politics.
Meta, which lost hundreds of billions in value earlier this year due to doubts about its future, is in a pitched fight against the video-sharing platform popular with young social media fans.
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Other Top Stories
🩺 Flipkart infuses nearly $700 million in its marketplace and healthcare unit
👟 Logistics startup Delhivery partners with Reliance-owned Ajio to improve customer experience
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