Latest news with #Sampat
Time of India
7 days ago
- Business
- Time of India
Multiplex chain Cinepolis bets on blockbusters to drive double-digit India revenue growth, executive says
Mexican theatre chain Cinepolis expects double-digit revenue growth in India this year as it opens more screens and bets on a major Hollywood and Bollywood lineup to bring in moviegoers. Western studios are counting on this summer to reverse a downtrend worsened by the 2023 Hollywood writers' strike, with blockbusters including "Jurassic World: Rebirth" and "F1" hitting theatres through September. "Hollywood has a very strong lineup, so (does) regional and Bollywood," said Cinepolis India Managing Director Devang Sampat, adding sharp marketing with malls and production houses could lift admissions, which are still 20% below pre-COVID levels. Theater chains face increasing competition from streaming apps, concerts and live sports. Still, Cinepolis, which operates 485 screen in India out of 6,800 globally, is looking to open 20-25 screens this year to drive revenue growth, Sampat said. As for longer-term expansion, the company is taking it "one year at a time," he added. Sampat did not disclose 2024 revenue or profit but said Cinepolis' annual revenue over the years, excluding the impact of the pandemic, had grown in the high single-digit to early-double-digit percentage range. According to industry data, Cinepolis reported a revenue of 13.46 billion rupees ($156.58 million) in the 2024 financial year, up 31% year-on-year, with net profit at 321 million rupees - its first annual profit in at least half a decade. Meanwhile, analysts expect revenue at PVR Inox, India's largest multiplex chain , to grow roughly 18% in the fiscal year that started on April 1, led by a strong movie lineup and plans to add 100-110 screens to its network of over 1,700. Indian multiplex revenues are expected to jump 20%-25%, fueled by big-budget movies such as "Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning", Rajinikanth's "Coolie", and Rishab Shetty's "Kantara: Chapter 1," said Shobit Singhal, research analyst at Anand Rathi.
Time of India
16-07-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Multiplex chain Cinepolis bets on blockbusters to drive double-digit revenue growth, executive says
Mexican theatre chain Cinepolis expects double-digit revenue growth in India this year as it opens more screens and bets on a major Hollywood and Bollywood lineup to bring in moviegoers. Western studios are counting on this summer to reverse a downtrend worsened by the 2023 Hollywood writers' strike, with blockbusters including "Jurassic World: Rebirth" and "F1" hitting theatres through September. "Hollywood has a very strong lineup, so (does) regional and Bollywood," said Cinepolis India Managing Director Devang Sampat, adding sharp marketing with malls and production houses could lift admissions, which are still 20% below pre-COVID levels. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like This Could Be the Best Time to Trade Gold in 5 Years IC Markets Learn More Undo Theater chains face increasing competition from streaming apps, concerts and live sports. Still, Cinepolis, which operates 485 screen in India out of 6,800 globally, is looking to open 20-25 screens this year to drive revenue growth, Sampat said. Live Events As for longer-term expansion, the company is taking it "one year at a time," he added. Sampat did not disclose 2024 revenue or profit but said Cinepolis' annual revenue over the years, excluding the impact of the pandemic, had grown in the high single-digit to early-double-digit percentage range. According to industry data, Cinepolis reported a revenue of 13.46 billion rupees ($156.58 million) in the 2024 financial year, up 31% year-on-year, with net profit at 321 million rupees - its first annual profit in at least half a decade. Meanwhile, analysts expect revenue at PVR Inox , India's largest multiplex chain , to grow roughly 18% in the fiscal year that started on April 1, led by a strong movie lineup and plans to add 100-110 screens to its network of over 1,700. Indian multiplex revenues are expected to jump 20%-25%, fueled by big-budget movies such as "Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning", Rajinikanth's "Coolie", and Rishab Shetty's " Kantara : Chapter 1," said Shobit Singhal, research analyst at Anand Rathi.
&w=3840&q=100)
Business Standard
16-07-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
Cinepolis bets on blockbusters to drive double-digit India revenue growth
Mexican theatre chain Cinepolis expects double-digit revenue growth in India this year as it opens more screens and bets on a major Hollywood and Bollywood lineup to bring in moviegoers. Western studios are counting on this summer to reverse a downtrend worsened by the 2023 Hollywood writers' strike, with blockbusters including "Jurassic World: Rebirth" and "F1" hitting theatres through September. "Hollywood has a very strong lineup, so (does) regional and Bollywood," said Cinepolis India Managing Director Devang Sampat, adding sharp marketing with malls and production houses could lift admissions, which are still 20 per cent below pre-COVID levels. Theater chains face increasing competition from streaming apps, concerts and live sports. Still, Cinepolis, which operates 485 screen in India out of 6,800 globally, is looking to open 20-25 screens this year to drive revenue growth, Sampat said. As for longer-term expansion, the company is taking it "one year at a time," he added. Sampat did not disclose 2024 revenue or profit but said Cinepolis' annual revenue over the years, excluding the impact of the pandemic, had grown in the high single-digit to early-double-digit percentage range. According to industry data, Cinepolis reported a revenue of 13.46 billion rupees ($156.58 million) in the 2024 financial year, up 31 per cent year-on-year, with net profit at 321 million rupees - its first annual profit in at least half a decade. Meanwhile, analysts expect revenue at PVR Inox, India's largest multiplex chain, to grow roughly 18 per cent in the fiscal year that started on April 1, led by a strong movie lineup and plans to add 100-110 screens to its network of over 1,700. Indian multiplex revenues are expected to jump 20 per cent-25 per cent, fueled by big-budget movies such as "Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning", Rajinikanth's "Coolie", and Rishab Shetty's "Kantara: Chapter 1," said Shobit Singhal, research analyst at Anand Rathi.
Mint
13-07-2025
- Mint
Meet the footpath warriors of Bengaluru
You could call it a double peak Bengaluru moment, combining as it did two of the city's abiding passions—technology and citizen activism. Early in May, around 20 people assembled near the Chinmaya Mission Hospital in Indiranagar at 11.30 on a Saturday morning to loiter with intent. They were volunteers who had shown up to conduct a 'walkability audit" as part of a project called Bangalore Ethereum Localism (BEL), which is using a Web 3 tool to gather data about Bengaluru's footpaths. 'We wanted to explore how this technology, its verifiability and transparency coupled with digital rewards and community coordination could support and benefit lives," says Madhav Sampat, founder of Bangalore Ethereum Localism. It is a global movement at the intersection of blockchain technology and local community, which uses tools built on peer-to-peer technology frameworks to power on-ground change. The tool included a survey for participants to gather visual data such as images and videos, locational data, as well as their observations from the footpaths. 'There were participants from various parts of Bangalore… some founders and developers, some students, but all interested to see how they can be involved and create change," says Sampat, who works with a Web 3 development platform, where he helps create tools on climate and sustainability. The aim was to gather data and share the results on social media to create awareness about the condition of footpaths. A series of citizen-led initiatives in Bengaluru are tackling the city's footpaths using a mix of community engagement, technology, and data-driven audits. While each group has its own approach—from Web3-enabled surveys to grassroots walkability challenges—they all reflect a growing demand for safer, walkable cities. Bengaluru's footpaths, like its roads and traffic, are notoriously bad. In relatively new areas of the city like Sarjapur, Bellandur and surrounding suburbs, where rampant construction over the past 10 years has resulted in an explosion of population without adequate infrastructure development, footpaths are hard to find at all. In older parts of the city, they are often broken and obstructed, sometimes dangerously so—with gaping holes, dug up slabs of concrete, and spilled garbage. There are exceptions—the footpaths built under the Tender S.U.R.E guidelines in the central business district of the city are model footpaths—broad, smooth, and even aesthetically pleasing. Seeing a need for hard data about how walkable (or not) Bengaluru is, Sensing Local, a non-profit urban planning lab run by designers and architects, launched a programme called Walkable Cities in 2023. 'What does the baselining of pedestrian infrastructure mean so that we can actually budget for it? The city admin doesn't know whether the capacity of footpaths is enough. When there are jams on the road, that's an indicator that there's a problem with road capacity. Pedestrians are just suffering silently," says Ankit Bhargava, an architect and urban planner who is one of the co-founders of Sensing Local, which has recently started a similar project in Kochi. To conduct the audits, they sent out a call via social media for citizen volunteers to conduct walkability audits across 25 wards in Bengaluru (the city is divided into nine zones and 198 wards) using a planning tool built in-house called 'Step Up". Hundreds showed up. 'Bangalore has a strong culture of citizen participation. Ward committees have helped us gather volunteers, coordinate the effort… there's this concentric effect of somebody doing the technical stuff of gathering the data, surrounded by this other group who chase the administration to fix the problems," says Bhargava. 'We have started getting calls from different citizen groups asking us to conduct walkability audits of their areas." The organisation released a report, Walkable Bengaluru, in late 2023 using data collected over 16 weekends by citizen volunteers in 19 wards using 27 parameters to assess footpaths and road junctions. The report, which pin-points the major issues—quality, encroachments, obstructions, waste, unsafe zones—also generated estimates to help the government and local community groups figure out budgets for the improvement of footpaths. They are also developing a tool in-house that can be used by citizen groups for DIY walkability audits. Sensing Local has approached the city administration with this data, backed by photographic evidence. The report was also included in the 2025 BBMP budget—but footpaths remain poorly maintained. Perhaps guerilla tactics are the only way to make things move, as Arun Pai has found out. The founder of walking tour company Bangalore Walks, who has been associated with citizen-led initiatives like The Ugly Indian that has worked on fixing small but visible infrastructure gaps in various Bengaluru neighbourhoods, started drawing attention to the condition of footpaths through a series of events since October 2023. He initiated The Footpath Challenge, where a social media call gathers hundreds of people to walk around the city and record how walkable it is. 'I don't call it an audit. It's not as technical. We use around 10 parameters to rate a footpath, like whether you can drag a wheeled suitcase on the footpath and what distance you can cover without having to lift it," says Pai. In December, he organised a 15-day BLRWalkfest as part of the BLR Hubba festival during which over 100 people walked through different neighbourhoods and rated footpaths every day for a fortnight. The footpath challenges are filmed and shared on the Bangalore Walks social media pages. They have been attended by corporators and MLAs, and in many cases, there has been instant action and spot fixes. Among the latest converts to Pai's mission to create 'Obstacle-Free Footpaths" is current BBMP commissioner Maheshwar Rao, who took charge on 30 April. Rao, who went on a footpath challenge walk in the city's Majestic area with Pai in May within weeks of taking office, has been going on footpath inspections in various parts of the city and sharing updates on X. Pai hopes this can-do attitude will impact people at various levels of the local administration. 'When you are in problem-solving mode, you find creative ways to work around a problem. If you can't change the system, get the local administration involved in a way that they don't feel cornered and shamed, but rather they see it as a positive challenge that can be fixed," says Pai. It is logical to question why, with so many footpath warriors auditing Bengaluru's pavements they don't join forces and collaborate by sharing data and strategies. The answer perhaps lies in the difference in the approach of each group. 'We are all working in our own ways to make the city better. You need a critical mass of people shouting, more people producing data," says Bhargava. 'The question is: why doesn't the city call upon all these actors, go through their data, and seek solutions that can be scaled?"
Business Recorder
11-07-2025
- Business
- Business Recorder
India needs to boost its petrochemical output to counter China's dominance, Reliance says
NEW DELHI: India needs to increase its petrochemical production capacity to meet local and global demand and contain China's growing dominance of the sector, a senior Reliance Industries official said on Friday. Petrochemical margins have shrunk across the world as China's capacity expansion has created a surplus. For some of its refiners, up to 40%-50% of their output can be petchems, more than double typical capacity levels in India. India's petrochemical demand for now is a tiny fraction of the global average but the nation's consumption is set to rise as the economy expands. India's economic growth is the highest of any major economy, while China's is stagnating and its gasoline and gasoil demandhave peaked, many analysts say. In India, the use of the two auto fuels is still rising, although at a slower pace as the country seeks to shift to cleaner fuels. Vikram Sampat, senior vice-president, strategy and business development, for the polyester chain at Reliance Industries told an industry conference that China was taking over 'the entire petrochemical industry' and India needed to take action. Ambani's Reliance to spin off India consumer goods business into new unit 'If we don't do it, China will continue to grow,' he said. Sampat said Reliance has a petrochemical intensity, or production capacity in its overall refining portfolio of 20%. Analysts say Indian refiners will increase their focus on petrochemicals to sustain margins and growth as demand for fossil fuel transport fuels approaches its peak in the coming years. Sampat said he expects refiners to redirect 30%–50% of the gasoline yield toward petrochemical production, if petrol demand peaks. If diesel demand peaks, the share of output going into petrochemicals could rise to as much as 50%–70%.
