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Sustainability ranking of top dairy companies
Corporate Sustainability in Context
Which companies are leading the herd on sustainability approach and communications?View Which tire companies are winning the race for sustainability?
Every year 200,000 tonnes of tiny particles shed by tires are flushed into the sea, says a new study. This is just one of the many sustainability issues facing the global tire industry; from sourcing (natural rubber remains a major ingredient), manufacturing, use (those particles) and the problem of what to do with millions of […]View


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On June 10, 2020, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Pfizer’s NYVEPRIA (pegfilgrastim-apgf), a biosimilar of Amgen’s NEULASTA. NYVEPRIA is indicated to “decrease the incidence of infection, as manifested by febrile neutropenia, in patients with non-myeloid malignancies receiving myelosuppressive anti-cancer drugs associated with a clinically significant incidence of febrile neutropenia.” According to a company press release, “The FDA approval was based on the review of a comprehensive data package and totality of evidence demonstrating a high degree of similarity of NYVEPRIA to its reference product.”
NYVEPRIA is the fourth biosimilar of NEULASTA to receive FDA licensure, following Mylan’s FULPHILA (pegfilgrastim-jmdb), Coherus’s FULPHILA (pegfilgrastim-jmdb), and Sandoz’s ZIEXTENZO (pegfilgrastim-bmez). These previously approved biosimilars were launched on the U.S. market over the course of 2018-2019. Pfizer’s press release, however, did not indicate a date for a U.S. launch. Over all, NYVEPRIA is the twenty-seventh biosimilar approved under the BPCIA regulatory regime, but it is the first biosimilar approval since the FDA approved Amgen’s AVSOLA (infliximab-axxq) on December 6, 2019.

domain: news


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UK Fintech Hubs – a hot opportunity
What is fintech?
The Fintech industry (short for "financial technology”) is centred on the principal of using technology to improve and automate financial services. It includes a wide range of sub-industries, such as digital payments, online lending, personal finance management tools, and blockchain-based solutions, making it one of the biggest, fastest-growing markets.
The financial industry has seen investments in fintech companies reaching new heights in recent years as the consumer world focuses on speed, efficiency, and safety in their money management. The use of technology in financial services has not only made it easier and more convenient for consumers to access and move their money, but has also enabled new business models, such as peer-to-peer lending and crowdfunding.
What are fintech hubs?
Fintech hubs are locations where a high concentration of fintech companies, entrepreneurs, investors, and other stakeholders are present. These hubs tend to be cities or smaller regions that have established themselves as centres of innovation and expertise in the fintech industry.
Fintech hubs can be found around the world, and some of the most well-known ones include Silicon Valley in the southern San Francisco Bay Area, New York City, London, Singapore, and Hong Kong. There are also smaller fintech ecosystems developing in cities like Toronto, Sydney, and Berlin, as the fintech industry continues to grow and become central to other business operations too.
Aside from their broader positive impact on the economy, fintech hubs can provide a range of benefits: they offer access to a highly skilled workforce, provide a supportive and regulatory environment, and employees there have access to a network of like-minded professionals and investors. Fintech hubs can also provide access to funding and other resources, as well as opportunities to collaborate with other companies in the industry as they begin their scaling journey. This collaboration can in turn provide opportunity for innovation, new jobs, and further economic growth and development.
In the news
This week, as the country looks to encourage financial innovation outside of London, the UK government has announced its plans to establish several new financial innovation hubs across locations such as: Leeds, Manchester, and Bristol, as well as some cities in Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland. With the intention of boosting the UK's standing in the fintech industry, the government-backed Centre for Finance, Innovation and Technology (CFIT) has also announced that they will be offering student placements at leading fintech companies, as well as working on plans for a fintech growth fund.
As one of the world's leading financial centres, with a long history of innovation and expertise in the financial industry, fintech hubs will play an important part in maintaining and growing the UK’s status in this field. In fact, according to research published by Innovate Finance, an independent industry body representing the UK fintech community, in 2022 the UK attracted $12.5 billion in fintech investment through 545 funding rounds. As such, the country is well-positioned to capitalise on the growth of the fintech industry; fintech hubs are a vital part of this strategy.
London is currently the most important fintech hub in Britain and is often considered to be the fintech capital of Europe. The city has a thriving fintech ecosystem, with a large number of fintech companies, investors, and other industry stakeholders present. London's position as a global financial centre, combined with its strong startup culture, makes it an attractive location for fintech companies looking to establish a presence in Europe. The UK government’s plan to create a number of these fintech hubs would not only create a wealth of opportunity for startup companies and hundreds of jobs, but would strengthen the local economies to these hubs too.
According to the CFIT:
“These hubs will support the work of existing regional clusters across the UK to advance fintech innovation, a move that reflects the impressive growth of the sector outside London – in 2021, regional fintech saw a 237% increase in investment from 2020.”
With more opportunities for companies outside of London to participate in the fintech industry, the UK can expect to see an increase in jobs and further investment across the UK, all of which will help promote broader economic development in these regions.
Selligence is the industry leader in providing sales triggers for you to use as actionable intelligence. We currently track 45 unique sales event triggers and within these, we also recognise a further 71 sub-event types. That means we can deliver 116 sales trigger types to you, on a daily basis.
Many of the Selligence sales triggers focus on the fintech industry, one of our core markets. By setting up saved searches for news on fintech hubs in your areas of interest, you can receive daily alerts delivered straight to your inbox or CRM. Sales triggers act as pre-intent data, meaning that you can get ahead of your competition by up to three months and be the first to reach out with relevance.
If you’re interested in learning how you can build sales triggers into you daily routine, reach out now for a demo of the Selligence platform.


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GE Healthcare has announced FDA 510(k) clearance of its latest Brivo Plus C-arm, now available in the U.S. With legacy OEC image quality and ease-of-use, the affordability and reliability of this new Brivo C-arm will offer a high quality option for basic surgical imaging.
The Brivo Plus uses enhancements and extras — such as Advanced Clear Intelligence imaging, an intuitive user interface, and wireless connectivity.
“We’re thrilled to bring our line of Brivo C-arms to the U.S. with the new OEC Brivo Plus,” said Jim Corrigan, President & CEO of GE Healthcare Surgery. “The C-arm offers an affordable solution without sacrificing the technology and innovation OEC is known for. With its compact design and easy manoeuvrability, the OEC Brivo Plus is a great option for our customers in surgery centres and facilities that need an easy-to-use, accurate mobile C-arm.”
This point and shoot C-arm has automated features that deliver quality imaging at a clinician’s fingertips, enabling optimal image acquisition with fewer re-takes. With new advancements in steering and lightweight construction, the C-arm’s compact design makes it easy to guide into space-constrained operating or procedure rooms. Brivo’s seamless connectivity and easy data management can help clinicians boost productivity, including the use of wireless capabilities to ensure the fast transfer and protection of data.


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Epic Mickey 2 destined for Mac and PC too
After Epic Mickey only managed to make it to the Wii it has come as a pleasant surprise that the sequel is looking like it will appear on almost everything.
To go along with the announcement that Epic Mickey 2 will be appearing on PS3 and Xbox 360 alongside the Wii release it will also be making an appearance on the PC and the Mac.
Disney has revealed that the PC/Mac versions will be a hybrid launch combining the two together like the Football Manager series and anything released by Blizzard.
The Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii versions are expected to be released some time in September of this year but it is unknown whether or not the PC/Mac release will accompany them yet.
Thanks Game Informer.
- Borderlands 2 writer leaving Gearbox to join Freddie Wong's RocketJump production company
- Bloodborne will be harder than Demon's Souls and features procedurally generated dungeons
- Hearthstone users pass the 75 million mark, new expansion on the way says new report
- Square Enix unveils the Final Fantasy Type-0 Collector's Edition
- Life Is Strange arrives today
- SEGA cuts jobs in the biggest strategic shift since they binned the Dreamcast
- Big new update arrives for Frozen Cortex
- Introversion's Prison Architect will see its full launch this year, mobile version announced
- Ken Levine's next game is a first-person sci-fi title


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Latin America adopting cryptocurrencies
The countries of Latin America are going through a crisis in the political and economic sphere. Countries like Argentina and Venezuela are going through an economic crisis that has been dragging for years, even decades.
For the citizens of these countries who notice that their currency is increasingly devalued and that salaries never conform to the large annual inflation rates, cryptocurrencies are a great alternative both as a refuge of value as well as a new way of conceiving commercial transactions. Adoption in these countries is largely driven by increasing distrust in their currencies and, of course, in their governments.
In LocalBitcoin, the platform most used by Latin American countries to buy and sell Bitcoin, we can see how there has been a clear increase in the volume of transactions in Argentina.
However, given this situation, the Argentine government had to limit the purchase of cryptocurrencies with credit cards, in a clear attempt to curb the "run" that is taking place lately against its currency: the Argentine Peso.
The serious economic, political and social crisis facing Venezuela is highly known. The adoption of cryptocurrencies has not gone unnoticed, however the structural problems that have to do with electric power and the poor internet service have limited Venezuelan citizens in their intention to adopt cryptocurrencies as a means of payment. However, as we reported in BitcoNews, Venezuelan Randy Brito has developed a new way of using technology that allows Bitcoin transactions without internet. This new technological development is a great hope for Venezuelans to finally adopt cryptocurrencies as a usual means of payment.


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Across Malawi, people point at the Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation (Admarc) as a fallen giant. The depots falling apart in disuse and closed when it matters most stimulate rage from Malawians who expect the State-owned firm to be active during the harvesting season as well as when hunger bites. Our Staff Writer BOBBY KABANGO unpacks the rot.
Admarc was established in 1971 to promote the country’s economy by increasing the quality and quantity of its agricultural exports.
Limphangwe Admarc Market closed shop in 2019
In their minds, policymakers at the height of founding president Hastings Kamuzu Banda’s one-party rule also envisioned the State-owned corporation developing new foreign markets for the country’s agricultural produce and supporting farmers by buying and selling their yields.
However, 53 years on, the country’s single most important food security and export apparatus has all but collapsed.
The company now thrives on a threadbare workforce as the retrenched majority endure uncertainties over their dues from a stuttering giant struggling to stock and supply grain for a starving nation.
Year after year, Admarc depots nationwide grapple to live up to its billing as a ready market for farmers to sell their produce.
When the harvesting season kicks in, its markets are outrun by roaming traders who buy nearly all the grain before the parastatal gets ample funding to join the fierce scramble to replenish its stocks.
Its chronic delays compel farmers to sell their harvests to vendors who resell it at exorbitant prices during the lean season.
This also worsens hunger as some traders smuggle truckloads of the vital but cheaply acquired grain to neighbouring countries.
In October, this story takes us to Livunzu along the eastern bank of the Shire River in Chikwawa District where people stayed almost four years without a grain of maize at the nearest Admarc depot.
According to the starving locals, Limphangwe Admarc Market closed shop in 2019.
“At first, we were travelling some 10 kilometres distance to buy and sell our maize at Nkhathe Admarc, but that one too was closed in 2020,” narrates Gerald Kenti.
The community switched to Mitondo Admarc Depot, which had sporadic maize supplies at the onset of the lean season, which spans from October to the next harvest in April.
“A few days later, Admarc also shut down Mitondo depot. This left us with no alternative but to go to vendors who charge more than double the price they offer to buy our crops,” says Kenti, 48.
The farmer, from Phali Village in Traditional Authority (T/A) Makhuwira, says it is “a rip-off” for farmers to buy back their produce at skyrocketing prices.
“It’s a raw deal,” he says. “These traders buy our grain at cheap prices they dictate as if they toiled with us in the fields, but sell it back to us at prices many farmers cannot afford.”
For many Malawians like Kenti and his community, Admarc was a lifeline due to its nationwide network, stable prices and dependable scales.
“We need a solution now; Kamuzu came up with this idea to help farmers. We cannot go on like this,” he says.
At Limphangwe Admarc, we only found a security guard at the gate. The main door was sealed with a massive chain and two padlocks draped in spiders’ web.
“We have no hope of getting services from our nearest Admarc depot. It’s just history now,” said Noriah Edison, from Alusi Village in the riverside community.
Looking back, she says the Admarc depot with gaping cracks was a go-to place 20 years ago.
She explains: “We grow crops not only to eat with our families but also to sell surplus and use the money to meet our needs.
“Admarc was a trusted market for our produce. They used to tell us which crops to focus on and provide a ready market. Now our Admarc is a selfish vendor who buys our crops for peanuts and sells it back at prices beyond our reach.”
In September 2022, then minister of Agriculture Lobin Lowe closed Admarc and sent staff on paid leave to pave the way for restructuring aimed at improving efficiency and profitability. The High Court has since faulted the sacked minister for sidestepping the ailing corporation’s board of trustees.
In January last year, Admarc acting general manager Ethel Zilirakhasu announced a 100 percent retrenchment of its labour force of more than 4 000.
A year on, Admarc has yet to identify funding for the business re-engineering process as well as retrenchment payouts.
Consumers Association of Malawi executive director John Kapito says Admarc’s woes fuel impoverishing maize prices across the country as vendors cash in on the growing desperation.
It remains unclear when Admarc will be back to its former glory as the restructuring perpetuates a culture of political interference that brought the once towering giant to its knees.
Agriculture Minister Sam Kawale did not answer our phone calls despite several attempts to understand the current status of Admarc.
However, some analysts have proposed a public-private partnership where the government holds a minority stake for the sake of efficiency, transparency and accountability.
Meanwhile, the Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture is against the suggestion.
The oversight committee argues against this, saying the country has not reaped the benefits of State-owned companies placed under the proposed partnership. n


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About “Useless Prototyping Studio”
The first prototype “Black Hole Recorder” by “Useless Prototyping Studio”, a project that inspires people’s hearts with seemingly useless prototypes, was released on March 12th.
The outline and background information are available on the official website.
This prototype will be exhibited at the “Miraikan – The National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation” from March 14th.
About “Black Hole Recorder”
The Black Hole Recorder is a prototype of black hole storage developed with the imagination of the future of using it as a device that can store information by controlling black holes.
With the motif of a gramophone, we have implemented a device that can record a huge amount of data.
In addition to storing a large amount of information, it is also possible to retrieve the captured information. Since inventing characters thousands of years ago, humans have evolved the media and technologies for recording information into paper, printing, photography, gramophones, video, and data.
In recent years, development has been made on how much information can be stored. And in the future, there is a possibility that black holes will be used as information storage.
- Main functions: Recording voice information / Playing voice information
- Amount of information that can be stored: Approximately 10 to the 61st byte
- Size: Height 630mm, Width 280mm, Depth 352mm
- ブラックホールを使えば那由他バイトの情報ストレージを実現できる!?｜IT Media 「MONOist」
- おまたせ！未来の情報ストレージデバイス｢Black Hole Recorder｣出たよ～！｜GIZMODE
- 未来の情報ストレージ「ブラックホール・レコーダー」って何？（動画）｜Yomiuri Shimbun Online
About prototype development support using “IoT SEED”
IoT SEED is a development kit that can significantly reduce the man-hours required when creating a mockup prototype of an IoT product. It can be combined with various types of microcomputers, and has high expandability to allow it to be equipped with abundant peripheral parts such as sensor modules and microphones. Used as a “SEED” for IoT product development, it can quickly grow your ideas.
Tailor Innovations uses IoT SEED to support the development of various product projects with a short delivery time.


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Apple and Samsung infringed patents, court rules
A SOUTH Korean court has dismissed claims by Apple that Samsung Electronics copied the design of its iPhone, but banned the sale of more than a dozen tablets and smartphone models made by both companies over patent infringements.
In a ruling that comes ahead of a keenly anticipated decision in a parallel case in the US, the Seoul Central District Court said yesterday that Apple had infringed two of Samsung’s patents related to mobile broadband technology.
It also ruled that Samsung had breached an Apple patent with a feature that makes the interface appear to “bounce back” when a user scrolls to the edge of the screen. But the court dismissed nine other claims by Apple, including its allegation that Samsung copied the distinctive shape of the iPhone.
“The rest of [Apple’s] claims [on design patents] are invalid because most features already appeared in previous inventions by Japanese companies and European firms,” judge Bae Joon-Hyun said.
Apple was ordered to pay 40 million won (€28,000) in damages while Samsung was told to pay 25 million won. The court also ordered an immediate block on sales in South Korea of affected products including Apple’s iPhone 3G, iPhone 4, iPad and iPad 2, and 12 models of Samsung’s Galaxy smartphones and tablets.
A person close to the situation said there were “procedural steps before the injunction order is physically enforced” and both firms could appeal against the decision.
The sales ban does not cover the companies’ most recent models, including Apple’s iPhone 4S and iPad 3, which had not been released when the suit began, and Samsung’s Galaxy SIII, which does not have the “bounce back” feature. However, the older models affected are still popular among consumers unwilling to pay a premium for the latest product.
Mark Newman, an analyst at Sanford C Bernstein in New York, said the “bounce back” feature would be easy for Samsung to fix through a software upgrade of the smartphones and tablets affected.
In contrast, the communications technology that prompted the injunction against Apple would be “very difficult to design around”, he said.
Larger payouts are expected to result from the hearing in California, where Apple is seeking $2 billion (€1.6 billion) in damages from Samsung, which in turn is seeking $500 million. The jury retired on Tuesday to deliberate.
– (Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2012)


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(Created By 5UP!) A new, free map called Airship will drop into the hit game on March 31, game developers Innersloth announced. There's currently no date set, or even a preview. Innersloth has officially revealed the . The Airship map update will release March 31, Innersloth announced on the official Among Us Twitter account. Among Us' Airship Map: All New Features Confirmed So Far Among Us finally getting new Airship map, hats and more The new map was announced initially in December, but it was delayed. Why Among Us' Next Map Could Be An Underground Level Inner Sloth, developers of the hit co-op game Among Us, will be rewarding fans of the game with a free heart hat when the long-awaited Airship . The Among Us 2021 roadmap trailer debuted during the Summer Game Fest Kickoff livestream on June 10. Among Us Airship map to release on March 31 with new lobby . Here's every feature confirmed for the new map so far, including hats, rooms, tasks, and more. Among Us' Airship map arrives later this month | VG247 Among Us will get its biggest map yet when The Airship arrives on March 31. The Airship will be the . When is the New Among Us Map Coming Out? - IRN Post Among Us' new map, The Airship, will be released on March 31, developer InnerSloth announced Thursday. Among Us New Map The Airship Release Date Announced . Due for release on March 31, the Airship Map has long been in development. Among Us' new Airship map will be available on March 31st as part of a free update first unveiled at the Game Awards back in December, . The latest Tweets from Among Us (@AmongUsGame). . It was initially announced at the Summer Game Fest on June 10, 2021. The map was first teased in late 2020 and offers a bunch of new tasks to try out . Among Us map update | Airship release date, time it goes live . The Airship is slated for release . Even though the . There is currently no release date set for Map 5, although now 15 player lobbies are in the player's hands, the team will be hard at work to get . It doesn't reveal much with regard to dates . However, players uncovered an . Apart from 'Map 5' - which is still . Why Among Us' Airship Map Took So Long | Screen Rant Hit murder mystery sim Among Us will get an account system, new mechanics, and its long-awaited airship map on March 31, maker Innersloth . Among Us Roadmap 🗺 Our plans for the game! - YouTube Among Us - Submerged Custom Map (Reveal Trailer) The NEW AMONG US SUBMERGED MAP. Among Us Devs Reveal 2022 Roadmap (Friend Lists, Map 5 . Among Us Airship Map Update Includes Free Heart Hat Among Us Shares Its Roadmap For 2022 - Nintendo Life Among Us developer Innersloth has revealed that the Airship map, first unveiled at last year's Game Awards, will arrive on March 31. Innersloth announced on Twitter that The Airship map will . But . Among Us Update Info: When The Airship Is Coming - Screen . The 'Among Us' Airship Map Finally Has a Confirmed Release . To see this . Fans of "Among Us" will soon find a new location to root out impostors. ET on all of the available platforms — mobile, PC, Nintendo . Among Us New Map Coming Soon: What We Know - OtakuKart What TIME Among Us' New Map The Airship Releases What time will among us new map release today? - The . Among Us map update - Airship release date, time, account . InnerSloth announced with a tweet that they will be launching this new map and also mentioned other . . In an official dev log released by Among Us developer InnerSloth, it was revealed that the game's next map would be available to players . As of right now, the only release date we have is a vague “early 2021,” which means that it will most likely arrive before summer. A screenshot of the game Among Us. Slowly but . Among Us' new Airship map launches on March 31st - The . The "Among Us" Airship Map is coming to the online game on March 31, with new mechanics, free hats and more tasks for players. The Airship is expected to be the . While the developers haven't announced an official release date for the map, . Among us new map airship with map trailer, map leak in 2022 Besides, a tad of the new Among Us update was revealed during the Summer Game Fest. Among Us Airship Confirmed Release Time - DualShockers Among Us Gets NEW Airship Map March 31st! - YouTube The most recent map to have been introduced to Among Us was the Airship, which released at the end of March 2021 alongside new tasks and . With the release window . For now, the release window for the Airship is set for sometime in Early 2021, which means the new map could come out at any time now. Why Among Us' 2021 Roadmap Hasn't Released Yet - Screen . The free new Among Us Airship map is coming on March 31 Among Us new map 'The Airship' is launching on March 31 Among Us Airship Update Includes New Map, Skins and More Popular strategy-based game Among Us will be launching its awaited new 'Airship' map in a new update on March 31. The first major update was released in . Among Us' Next Map: Why An Industrial Factory Would Be . They also said, “this NEW map is our . 'Among Us' New Map Release Date, Inspiration, Spoilers InnerSloth has finally revealed a March 31 release date for its biggest Among Us map yet, The Airship, as well as a new accounts system. Among Us Submerged Map (Feb 2022) Read Details Now! >> Check out the new and innovative maps releasing for various well-known online games! Innersloth finally has a release date for the new Among Us map, 'The Airship'. Map 5 is an upcoming fifth map for Among Us. Innersloth also released Among Us' roadmap, outlining planned updates for the game throughout the rest of the year and beyond, including the . Fans have had to be patient, but will take to the skies on March 31. Among Us Gets Airship Map And New Update Later This Month Among Us is set to get a host of new features and updates, including a Friend's List to keep in contact with the friends and enemies you . Among Us' New Map: Every Room Confirmed For the Airship . Among Us: The Airship Map Release Date Announced - IGN Innersloth announced at Summer Game Fest 2021 that the hit online multiplayer coop game "Among Us" will soon receive its fifth map. The next Among Us map is finally coming out, here's why it . InnerSloth has finally confirmed the released date for the new Among Us map, to the delight of impatient fans. Besides the new map, the update . New Among Us map Airship arrives March 31 - Dot Esports Among Us Submerged Map (Feb 2022) Read Details Now! Fifth 'Among Us': Map Setting, Theme And Cost [Details] Among Us Airship Map Gets Release Date; Slated for the End . Nowadays, every among us game freak, talking about the new release over each social media platform. Regarding the estimated launch time, Innersloth has explained (via Twitter) . Among Us' new Airship map release date revealed - Polygon Among Us' New Map: Every Theory Explained | Screen Rant Among Us The Airship update is expected to release on March 31, and will likely be received with a ton of players making a trip back to the game . - NME Among Us New Map - If Innersloth released SUBMERGED in . The Airship and Polus maps were released a little over a year apart from each other, but with the help of new staff, the developer might begin .
The Airship, Among Us' new map, will be released on March 31, 2021 alongside a new update that adds the ability to pick which room you start . Among Us New Map – Details and Release Date - WidgetCore Among Us Airship Map Release Date and Expected Time A 5th Map Among Us will be released in the future, but we don't know much more about it. The NEW AMONG US UPDATE COMING! (MAP 5 & NEW . In just under two weeks, precisely on March 31, players will finally be able to immerse themselves in the new area which, according to the . Among Us 2022 Roadmap | Innersloth Innersloth has revealed the release date for Among Us' new map The Airship, and it is coming on March 31, 2021. The map was originally announced in a . Among Us: a 5th map and many new features coming soon Innersloth will release new Among Us Airship map including new content, gameplay mechanics and cosmetics for gamers on March 31. Among Us will have a 1 shot manga feature in Bessatsu Corocoro magazine on . Studio Innersloth has revealed an updated roadmap for the game, showing what fans can expect in 2022. A 2021 map for Among Us updates is still missing in action, despite a promise early this year - which may be because predictions are . There's no official launch time, although . This is the result of many content creators and streamers making . 'Among Us': New Airship map is launching free on March 31 Among Us Airship Map Gets March Release Date Among Us to finally release new Airship map: patch date, first . Among Us' Airship Map Will Arrive At The End Of March The Airship map in Among Us is releasing soon. A new, free map called Airship will . Airship map and new content in Among Us: when it's coming Among Us' new Airship map will be available on March 31st as part of a free update coming to the hit social deduction game. Among Us: The Airship map release date and new features Among Us Map 5: Leaks, Release Date, Theme, New Tasks . Among Us The Airship map: Release date, new tasks . Among Us fifth map will release this year | The Loadout Among Us Roadmap revealed by InnerSloth, new map roles . Among Us (@AmongUsGame) | Twitter 'Among Us' developers give Airship Map release date . After many months after its reveal, Among Us' new map Airship will officially be released on March 31. . Among Us Details New Airship Map Coming Soon - Game Rant Among Us New Airship Map Release Date Confirmed - Gamer . Among Us Submerged Map (Aug) Get Complete Details! The long-awaited Airship map for Among Us has a release date. This free update will offer new tasks, a new map, a spawn-point . The next Among Us map, Airship, will be launching at the end of March. The New Map Release Date . NEW AMONG US MAP RELEASE DATE! (+All Vent Locations . In a Tweet posted just after 9pm UK time, from the game's . The new Airship map in Among Us was announced back in December and is releasing March 31st. Among Us: The Airship Map Is Available Now - GameSpot. Innersloth to release new Among Us Airship map on Mar 31 A 2022 road map for the smash hit multiplayer game Among Us has been released by developer Innersloth. Arriving on March 31st, 2021, here are the times in which the new map will drop in your area. Fortunately, that's not the cause. Everything we know about the 'Among Us' hide 'n' seek mode . Nearly nothing is known about this map yet . Check out all of the new features and tasks that will come with . Map 5 | Among Us Wiki Fixes and a peek at the new map! - Among Us by Innersloth Among Us - If Innersloth released New Map on July 32 Later this month, Among Us fans will finally have a new map to play on. This has led to a lot of speculation about the map's actual release, with a . m. Here's why Among Us' Airship map took so long to . There is no official release date yet, but InnerSloth has . Here's every room that has been confirmed for the Airship . As announced by Innersloth, the Airship map is coming on March 31. Now finally the map will be released on March 31. The first focus for accounts will be to get reporting and moderation . Fans have been waiting patiently for the new map since it was shown at The Game Awards in December, and developer Innersloth is finally ready to . ✦ made of 1 bone ✦ PC, mobile, Switch, Xbox, PlayStation and @AmongUsVR ✦ By @InnerslothDevs ✦ Merch: . Among Us, the social education online game by InnerSloth, is massively popular. Is Among Us' Next Map Going To Be Free | Screen Rant We launched an official Among Us Twitter with a sneak peek at the new map! . AMONG US AIRSHIP MAP COUNTDOWN + GAMEPLAY . 'Among Us' New Map: Airship Release Date, Free Hats and . The Airship map in Among Us is almost here. Among Us Airship Map Release Time - TalkEsport Recently, Innersloth the devs of Among Us have announced that their new map, The Airship will release on March 31 with a free in-app update. The Among Us team from InnerSloth released the new Airship map on 31st March 2021. The Airship map is finally taking off in Among Us on March 31 Among Us to launch new 'Airship' map, new account system . The Among Us Airship map and account system will arrive on March 31st for all platforms. The Airship map to launch in Among Us in late March update Currently, an exact date for when the new Among Us map could come out is unknown, but it's probable that more news will come out in the next few . A brand-new Among Us map, the Airship, is available now. Among Us New Map Release Date is March 31st. Officially, the Airship has been given an "Early 2021" release date. It will feature new . EDIT: FORGOT TO ADD MAP 5 TO THE “PLANS” SECTION LOL SORRY. The Airship's release date has been confirmed as coming to Among Us on March 31st, 2021. Announced back at The Game Awards in December, the brand new Among Us map has a March 31 release date. How Among Us' Switch Launch Affected The Airship Map Innersloth's next big update for Among Us will have players taking to the skies as its big new map, The Airship, finally launches at the end . Among Us 2022 roadmap shows new roles and more . It looks like the new map will be coming sooner rather than later. Among Us' New Map: Is the Airship Update Free | Screen Rant The map was officially revealed by Geoff Keighley at The Game Awards back in 2020 and was given an “early 2021” release window. Among Us Airship Map Release Date. Among Us' new map, the Airship, is arriving in early 2021 and will have new rooms. Players can expect to be able to download the highly-anticipated update at 2 p. Innersloth's blog post also details the . As announced by Innersloth during the Game Awards on Dec 10th, the Airship map for Among Us is finally going live. Even . Dubbed 'The Airship,' the map will arrive as part of a free update . The new map was originally revealed .


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Artists & Influencers
Experiences & Events
Wave, the virtual concert company that facilitates live music in virtual settings, has raised $30 million in funding. Wave uses broadcast and gaming technology to create motion-captured performances of artists and turn them into animated characters in virtual worlds.
So much of our life involves buttons and touchscreens, but what if you didn’t need to touch them?
As countries around the world start to cautiously reopen, changes will have to be made.
Burger King debuts 'social-distance crowns' in Germany as restaurants test quirky ways to keep customers apart
“You need to bring out — in all of your workforce — creative skills, because as we know with the modernization of IT, and specifically with A.I. (artificial intelligence) machine learning, anything that’s a logical processing job will be at some point replaced, so what we’re asking our staff to...
Returning October 10-13, 2019, BLINK is one of the largest light, art and projection mapping events in the nation.The four-day event features large-scale projection mapping installations, murals, urban artscapes, media light and interactive art in Cincinnati, OH. BLINK spans 30+ city blocks, from the Kentucky River Banks to Cincinnati’s Findlay...
Leading a global mission to ‘stir creativity,’ BOMBAY SAPPHIRE® Gin is thrilled to announce its US partnership with The Other Art Fair. As part of the greater #FindYourCanvas movement created by BOMBAY SAPPHIRE®, the pair joins forces in a shared pursuit to inspire and enable creative self-expression.
Apple is incorporating iPhone-enabled tours featuring digital artworks ([AR]tworks). You must sign up in advance to get special phones loaded with the [AR]T app and headphones. However, there is a an AR art experience, titled Amass, created by Nick Cave that people can use for a secondary show.


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Who has the largest foot in the NBA?
Yao Ming is one of the tallest athletes to ever play in the NBA. His giant feet also sets him apart from other players. As a center, he grabbed 19 points and 9.2 rebounds each game on average in his career.
Who wears a size 22 shoe?
Tacko Fall has big shoes to fill–literally. Fall wears size 22 shoes and is set to become only the fifth NBA player to ever sport such large sneakers, per the Action Network’s Darren Rovell. He will join Shaq, Will Perdue, Bob Lanier and Dikembe Mutombo as the latest addition to the rare NBA group.
Who has the longest foot?
Surpassing former record-holder, Sultan Kösen, Takioullah became the Guinness World Record holder for world’s largest feet on a living person, on 24 May 2011. His left foot measures 38.1 centimetres (1 ft 3 in), and his right 37.5 centimetres (1 ft 2.8 in).
Who has the smallest foot in the world?
My Feet Podiatry and Chiropody
As for the smallest non-bound feet, the award goes to 19-year-old Jyoti Amge from Nagpar, India. Her tiny feet are just 3.72 inches long!
What country has the biggest feet?
Jeison Orlando Rodríguez Hernandez, from Maracay, Venezuela, has feet measuring nearly 16 inches each and his shoes are size 26. A Venezuelan man has claimed a spot on the Guinness Book of World Records for the biggest feet.


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A new GamesBeat event is around the corner! Learn more about what comes next.
John Riccitiello left Electronic Arts yesterday with a mixed record.
In the nearly six years he led EA, the gigantic video game publisher faced a massive shift in the market, from games primarily sold on physical media and played on consoles to games sold and delivered wirelessly and played on everything from consoles to smartphones and tablets. The market shifted from expensive games you buy and own to free-to-play games that cost nothing to play at first, but which charge you for extras. The market expanded from the living room to mobile devices. Through it all, EA survived — which is more than some of its rivals can say — but it hasn’t exactly thrived.
In this story, we’ll try to recapture the ups and downs of Riccitiello’s tenure at the top of one of the video game industry’s most visible companies, and by the end of it, we’ll sort through the complex picture of his record at EA. We’ll also take a look at where the company is going in the future.
Three top investment pros open up about what it takes to get your video game funded.
Lessons from success — and failure
Ostensibly, the board fired Riccitiello because he missed his quarterly and annual financial targets. In the past, the board might have excused this, since many companies were in the same boat. But at a time of great change in the video game business, so-so performance is no longer good enough. (EA’s temporary CEO is former chief executive Larry Probst, who is looking for a permanent replacement for Riccitiello.)
Still, it’s too simple to say that Riccitiello was a big screwup. In fact, Riccitiello was in many ways a very successful CEO who guided EA through a very difficult transition. By comparison, rivals such as THQ have crashed on the shoals of the digital gaming revolution while Riccitiello arguably saved EA from such a fate. But to demanding shareholders, merely surviving is not good enough. They want EA to seize the opportunities before it to become the dominant player in digital gaming. And it hasn’t quite done that.
EA declined to make an executive available for an interview for this story. But an EA spokesman said in a statement to GamesBeat, ” In the course of seven years, there’s a lot of puts and takes in that equation – recession, extended console cycle, etc. Beyond the macros, we knew this would be a difficult transition – one that required a great deal of investment in people and infrastructure. We knew that the ROI wasn’t going to be immediate. That said, it’s been more difficult than expected – the turnaround took longer than expected.”
Meanwhile, EA’s chief operating officer, Peter Moore, said on his Facebook page, “[Game news site] Kotaku reveling in what, due to their self-smugness, they don’t realize is a sad day for our industry, which is the platform on which they actually make money. John not only helped propel our company and interactive entertainment into new experiences, thus enticing millions of new people to become ‘gamers,’ his work leading the [Entertainment Software Association] in recent years has helped ensure that we don’t experience the fate of the music industry. Sad loss for all of us who had the pleasure of working with him as we emerged from The Burning Platform.”
Many rivals have beaten EA in small pieces of the larger industry war. If you can fault the company for anything, it may be for trying to fight too many battles at once.
The publisher didn’t lose all of those battles. In his parting message to his employees, Riccitiello pointed to their successes.
“Personally, I think we’ve never been in a better position as a company,” Riccitiello said. “You have made enormous progress in improving product quality. You are now generating more revenue on fewer titles by making EA’s games better and bigger. You’ve navigated a rapidly transforming industry to create a digital business that is now approximately $1.5 billion and growing fast.”
Riccitiello set many things in motion. But giving him credit or assigning blame is a complicated matter, as the execution always lies in the hands of thousands of employees.
It is easy to point to EA’s failures, such as Star Wars: The Old Republic, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game that took so long to finish that the market changed from underneath it, moving from lucrative subscriptions to free-to-play. After six years and perhaps $200 million in development costs, The Old Republic didn’t get the audience that EA had hoped for, and it had to shift to free-to-play to hang on to its players.
The reboot of the first-person military shooter Medal of Honor was a sad failure. More recently, big franchises like Crysis 3 and Dead Space 3 didn’t perform as expected. And the recent SimCity launch — which sold more units faster than any other title in the city-simulation game’s 24-year history — was marred by EA’s failure to provide enough servers for the always-connected game.
On the positive side, EA’s Battlefield military shooter series became a big hit, and FIFA Soccer has become a monstrous franchise, with a large component of digital revenues.
EA’s shares are down 60 percent since Riccitiello began. Shareholders and boards often show no mercy when they fire a CEO, and in this case, they had plenty of failures to point to as reasons to fire Riccitiello, who once told VentureBeat, “I don’t think investors give a shit about our quality.”
“Transitions are painful,” said P.J. McNealy, a longtime game industry follower and analyst at Digital World Research. “Look at Sony and the changes they had in leadership. EA has struggled. THQ has struggled. At some point, there has to be accountability for it. Typically, it’s not any one reason. But EA’s struggles are not limited to just this quarter.”
But it’s easy at a time like this to forget about Riccitiello’s successes and how each failure was also rich with learning.
“I’ve had first-hand experience with failure, and I have had the opportunity to learn and recover from it,” Riccitiello said in a speech at his alma mater, the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley, in 2011.
He’ll have plenty of time to ponder the lessons he learned at EA now.
In its own statement defending Riccitiello’s record, EA said to GamesBeat, “Our definition of turnaround swung on how quickly we could transition from the packaged goods model to digital goods and services. John made it clear that this was life or death. The dissolution of THQ this year makes it clear how right he was. By every measure, the turnaround is happening. As noted in an earnings call, this is the last year that digital revenue will be under 50 percent of EA’s total. One example is the first two weeks of [digital] sales for SimCity were just under 45 percent, and we expect the percentage will go even higher. Riccitiello’s turnaround is an article of faith inside EA – if it hadn’t happened, we wouldn’t be in business today.”
Riccitiello’s first tour of duty at EA
Riccitiello joined EA as chief executive in 2007. It was his second stint at the company. He had previously served as president and chief operating officer from 1997 through April 2004. He left in between to become a co-founder of Elevation Partners, a private equity investment firm that hatched the merger of game developers BioWare and Pandemic.
In his first tenure, Riccitiello was new to games. He had spent a career in consumer products at companies such as Clorox, Pepsi, Haagen-Dazs, Wilson Sporting Goods, and Sara Lee. Probst hired Riccitiello on the bet that his experience in consumer marketing would pay off at a time when video games were becoming a worldwide mass market. With properties like Madden NFL and FIFA Soccer, EA had become a household name. Its biggest rival today, Activision Blizzard, hadn’t yet been formed.
During Probst’s 16-year tenure as CEO, the company became the undisputed giant of the video game business. EA was the king maker, breaking Sega’s Dreamcast console when it chose not to create games for that platform and making the PlayStation 2 by throwing all of its weight behind Sony’s system. By the time Riccitiello joined, EA was in its glory years, and it was looking at how to further exploit its position as a giant in sports games, licensed movie titles, and online games.
He was a newcomer to games, but Riccitiello immersed himself in them as a player and as a cultivator of talent. Probst, the former chief executive and now the acting CEO again, and Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick have both admitted to not being gamers, or at least not the really hardcore kind. But Riccitiello played games and tried to understand the way they were built. He was sharp and a quick study and formed relationships with key creators.
Riccitiello made contributions, but always as part of a larger executive team. He and studio chief Don Mattrick encouraged the company to get behind Will Wright, who was working on a dollhouse-like title that would later become The Sims, the best-selling EA game series of all time. Riccitiello encouraged his leaders to take risks, egging Neil Young to create a visionary title in Majestic, an early alternate-reality game that turned into a commercial flop. In one case, Riccitiello made a brilliant bet. In the other, the outcome was a dud. These results would be typical of Riccitiello’s life at EA. He could share a vision with marquee developers and get behind them like a zealot. Sometimes it panned out; sometimes it didn’t. But he was always willing to bet big.
Riccitiello’s job was to diversify EA, and he did so through acquisitions of companies like Pogo.com, a casual game website for older, less serious players. EA picked up Westwood Studios, the creator of the Command & Conquer real-time strategy series; and Dreamworks Interactive, the original developer of Medal of Honor. It also bulked up with acquisitions of racing game studios and rode the success of titles based on the Harry Potter books and films. EA stole the James Bond 007 movie-game license from Nintendo, convincing the Hollywood owner that it could take the series multiplatform. Riccitiello and executive Frank Gibeau played a role in that coup. EA came to specialize in multiplatform blockbusters.
The company had become so dominant during the era of the PlayStation 2 that developers feared it would homogenize the industry and drive out all of its creativity. That led some to do everything they could to stay out of EA’s clutches, an issue that persists today. EA’s acquisitions follow a pattern. Some thrive for a while, but as soon as their magic wares off, EA shuts them down and puts its efforts behind another.
And during the run-up of the huge dotcom boom, Riccitiello searched for a way for EA to cash in. After Richard Garriott’s Ultima Online became the first major hit in massively multiplayer online games, Riccitiello started EA.com, a web games business that would be home to a whole collection of MMOs. With these games, EA could keep much more of the profit since it charged subscription fees. Under Riccitiello, EA initiated big-budget online titles like Motor City Online, Earth & Beyond, The Sims Online, and Ultima Online 2.
But the dotcom bubble burst and brought down everything with it. That was a costly lesson. EA wrote off more than $400 million. Of all of the things that Riccitiello had achieved at EA, the failure of EA.com would, fairly or not, become a huge part of his legacy. You could argue that he had been caught up in the Internet wave and that he deserved to be fired for making the wrong bet. But then, you could also fire just about everybody in Silicon Valley, where EA is based, for the same thing.
During Riccitiello’s stay as the No. 2 executive at EA, the company got bigger and stronger. It had setbacks, but that’s entertainment.
Leaving and coming back
At the time of the bubble’s collapse, EA didn’t fire Riccitiello, but he eventually left on his own. In 2004, Silicon Valley was still amid its “nuclear winter,” the post-dotcom crash era when investment had dried up. But after leaving EA that spring, Riccitiello hooked up with investor Roger McNamee and U2 lead singer Bono to create Elevation Partners.
They assembled a big fund and decided to pour their money into entertainment startups, including game development companies, which had always been undervalued even after they were proven hit machines. Riccitiello put $400 million into Josh Resnick’s Pandemic Studios and BioWare, the successful studio of Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk, two former doctors who had built addictive role-playing games.
Meanwhile at EA, Erin Hoffman, writing under the pseudonym EA Spouse, blew the lid on the harsh, family-unfriendly culture that required employees to work all the time. The result was multiple class-action lawsuits, and EA had to pay millions to workers for unpaid overtime. EA’s “crunch time” all the time became a symbol of all that was wrong with the game industry. It was thriving as a profitable business, but under the hood, things were dirty.
During the time that Riccitiello left, the company did OK from 2004 to 2007.
In 2005, EA bought Jamdat Mobile, the largest player in mobile games. That meant EA was investing heavily in mobile before Apple created the iPhone. That kind of learning gave it a big advantage as the era of apps took off. To further get its mojo back, Probst made a bold play. He agreed to acquire BioWare-Pandemic for $800 million. And Riccitiello became CEO while Probst stayed on as chairman. Almost in reaction, Activision and Blizzard Entertainment merged to become EA’s biggest rival.
But Riccitiello made no secret about the problems that he observed at EA when he returned. As he saw it, by 2008, EA had seen its development costs skyrocket with the transition to the high-def consoles, the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Its product quality had suffered, and it had missed seeing the mass appeal of the Nintendo Wii, which debuted in 2006 and became a spectacular hit. Gamers no longer enjoyed licensed titles based on movies. By the time EA moved to that platform, the Wii had begun to cool off. Riccitiello launched his own hostile bid to acquire Take-Two Interactive, the maker of Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption, but that attempt failed.
“Our profits were in rapid decline before they went entirely negative,” Riccitiello recalled in his 2011 speech. He said he told employees that the company had to go through a radical change or accept a “shrinking share of a shrinking pie and eventually die.” EA had to adapt to the digital gaming world, which included everything from smartphones to Facebook games to downloadable content on consoles. It also had to dramatically improve quality and push beyond retail games into online distribution. And for the first time, EA had to dramatically cut headcount.
In 2009, the world fell apart with the global financial crisis. EA’s stock took a tumble from the highs of 2007 and never recovered. Zynga grew rapidly with titles like FarmVille, opening a whole new market for games on Facebook. To catch up, EA paid as much as $400 million to acquire social gaming firm Playfish. EA laid off 1,500 employees in October 2009 on the same day it announced that deal. Many viewed the acquisition of Playfish as an admission of failure — that EA couldn’t beat rivals such as Zynga on its own. But it was a savvy way to catch up as well.
“We knew it would be hard, but we had no idea how hard,” he said in his 2011 speech. “We had to do these three hard things when the press and the financial analysts told us we were crazy — that the cutting was great, but the investment in digital was just not a good idea. It proved very hard to hear the negative drumbeat while tackling very hard challenges at work.”
In the meantime, Activision and Blizzard Entertainment executed well on their merger. Blizzard’s World of Warcraft held off challengers to its supremacy in online games. Activision’s Call of Duty series became a huge juggernaut for military shooters and online multiplayer. EA fought valiantly with the relaunch of the Battlefield series, particularly with the successful launch of Battlefield 3. But its Medal of Honor reboot failed, and Activision remains dominant in the multibillion-dollar shooter market.
Other rivals, like Zynga, DeNA, Gree, Take-Two Interactive, Valve, Wargaming.net, and Riot Games, succeeded (at least for a time in some cases) in spectacular fashion in their own corners of the business. The success of those companies made EA’s own victories seem meager by comparison.
In 2011, EA fought back in a big way, acquiring casual game publisher PopCap Games for at least $750 million. That deal tied up a lot of EA’s cash hoard, but it has had unclear results.
Riccitiello takes it personally
Anybody who knew Riccitiello during this time understood how much value he placed on loyalty. During EA’s period of retrenchment, rivals left. It was galling to see John Pleasants (now head of Disney’s game division) leave and join rival Playdom. A day after he departed, EA’s PR folks made it clear that it told Pleasants he was being replaced first.
John Schappert, a former EA veteran and top Microsoft games executive, filled in for Pleasants. Then in June 2011, Zynga hired away Schappert to be the No. 2 to its CEO, Mark Pincus. Zynga was already rich with former EA executives, and its most influential board member was Bing Gordon, the former chief creative officer at EA and someone that Riccitiello knew well. They were all friendly competitors, but they were also fierce rivals.
Back in 2011, Riccitiello said, “I lost a few friends in the process: smart, creative people who just couldn’t stomach the transition.”
Many headed to other game companies for a quicker profit and payout.
Riccitiello said he was surprised and heartened at how many stayed purely on faith. He said EA could have scaled back on its ambitious plan to satisfy analysts or the press, but it did not. He promoted executives such as Muzyka, who executed well in taking the Mass Effect series from an Xbox exclusive to a multiplatform juggernaut. Riccitiello brought aboard Peter Moore, another former Microsoft games executive, as the head of EA Sports. He eventually promoted Moore to become chief operating officer. (Muzyka retired last year, along with his fellow BioWare cofounder Zeschuk.)
At one point, Riccitiello tried to poach some of Activision Blizzard’s best developers. Through then-Hollywood agent Seamus Blackley, he came into contact with Vince Zampella and Jason West, the co-founders of Infinity Ward, which made Call of Duty into Activision’s blockbuster. Activision discovered the communication, fired the two executives, and filed a lawsuit. Riccitiello eventually won Zampella and West over to EA’s fold, signing a deal with their new studio, Respawn Entertainment. The litigation spurred more bad blood between Riccitiello and Activision Blizzard CEO Kotick, but it was eventually settled.
The downside of angering Riccitiello became evident in another lawsuit. After Zynga launched The Ville (with former EA manager Mark Skaggs, pictured above, leading the project), EA cried foul, alleging that it was a blatant rip off of its own The Sims Social, and sued for copyright infringement.
Zynga fired back in a counter-claim that Riccitiello was furious at it for hiring former EA executives. The company alleged that Riccitiello personally proposed an anti-competitive “no hire” pact with Schappert (who has since left Zynga), or he would “rain hell.” Zynga said that it had received more than 3,000 unsolicited resumes from EA employees. Riccitiello was reportedly so upset at Schappert’s hiring of executives such as Jeff Karp (former marketer of The Sims at EA) and Barry Cottle (former head of EA Mobile) that he got the legal team to file suit. In the filing, Zynga said that Riccitiello wrote to Schappert, “Some of our people will always leave. But they are leaving for one place — Zynga. … I get that they can reach out. The question is what happens when they do. Listen and send them back to me or their boss at EA. Or, listen, nod, and lend a hand. … We are crossing into a place I don’t think we want to be. … But I believe you can and should find more talent outside of EA.”
Zynga further said, “EA explicitly communicated to [us] that, although Zynga’s past hiring was lawful, EA’s chief executive officer John Riccitiello was ‘on the war path,’ ‘incensed,’ and ‘heated,’ and intent on stopping Zynga’s future hiring of EA employees.” When Cottle left EA in January 2012, Riccitiello reportedly said, “If Mr. Cottle reported back to work at EA, he would ‘pretend none of this ever happened,’ but if not, he would ‘rain hell’ on Mr. Cottle for the next several weeks.”
At the time, EA countered by saying, “This is a predictable subterfuge aimed at diverting attention from Zynga’s persistent plagiarism of other artists and studios. Zynga would be better served trying to hold on to the shrinking number of employees they’ve got rather than suing to acquire more.”
The two companies eventually settled the lawsuit. As Zynga’s own value crashed in the stock market, Riccitiello’s public stance toward rivals softened. But clearly, hardball was common among Riccitiello and the small circle of executives who worked with him or opposed him.
All of those examples of taking things personally showed just how tough Riccitiello could be. But regardless of what you think of those incidents, he was clearly always a fierce competitor when it came to acting in the interests of EA.
Unlucky in the blue ocean
The series of above-mentioned personal incidents served as a reminder that Riccitiello could be trapped into seeing the world as a zero-sum game. Like his rivals, he would battle in the red ocean (where the sharks are fighting for the red meat) rather fight in the blue ocean (or parts of the market where no one is playing). If Activision had a hit with Guitar Hero, Riccitiello attacked it with Rock Band. He went after Call of Duty’s success by rebooting Battlefield and Medal of Honor. And after Zynga scored with CityVille, Riccitiello struck back with SimCity Social.
If any one of the titles struck gold, then EA would make sequel after sequel. That earned the ire of consumers and game developers who want more creativity in games, not homogeneity. Riccitiello engaged in copycat wars. Sometimes, he accused his rivals of copying him, and sometimes it was the other way around. It was a kind of trap, and it explained why some gamers became disillusioned with the state of the overall traditional video game market, which has been shrinking since 2010.
“Taking on Activision in head-to-head competition was not a good strategy,” said P.J. McNealy at Digital World Research.
For sure, Riccitiello made some huge bets in blue ocean games that were risky. He backed Spore, the first major project that Will Wright undertook after making The Sims. The game received great ratings and sold millions of units. But it was nowhere near as big a hit as The Sims was. In that sense, it was a victim of unrealistic expectations. Riccitiello greenlit some major games such as the sci-fi horror series Dead Space.
Riccitiello was a big advocate of publishing third-party games through a program dubbed EA Partners. In doing so, EA stepped back into a role of a distributor, fulfilling demand for games from major third-parties. EA still has some big partner games in the works, like the one coming from Respawn Entertainment.
In more recent years, EA has retreated from offering many new intellectual properties to focusing on proven franchises such as Battlefield, Need for Speed, FIFA Soccer, Madden NFL Football, and SimCity. EA has many more franchises that it owns.
By contrast, Activision Blizzard invested in the innovative toy-game hybrid Skylanders. As a result, Activision Blizzard has a new billion-dollar franchise with more than 100 million toys sold. Riccitiello did a lot of the right things in his quest for the blockbuster game that would make EA great. They just didn’t all pan out.
The road to today’s EA
With consumers, EA’s games remained popular. But it occasionally ran into the buzz saw of public opinion. Many hardcore gamers hated the ending of Mass Effect 3, so much so that EA redid the ending in subsequent downloadable content. This got EA branded the “worst company in America.”
Some fans hated how EA charged for downloadable content that became available on the same day as a game’s launch. They felt that was nickel-and-diming them. And the haters came out again when EA’s servers failed to keep up with demand for the always-connected SimCity. In each of these incidents, Riccitiello took his share of the blame. But those things were minor compared to whether EA met its financial targets.
In his going-away message, Riccitiello said the decision to leave EA was all about his accountability for the shortcomings in financial results. Those results are at or below the guidance EA issued to Wall Street, and EA has fallen short of the internal operating plan it set a year ago. He said, “And for that, I am 100 percent accountable.”
Riccitiello reminded everyone that EA is No. 1 in mobile, the fastest-growing video game market. But it has had to adapt to swift changes in that business as well, as free-to-play business models now rule the business. These changes have leveled the playing field in mobile, giving tiny developers the chance to launch hit titles on an equal footing with giants such as EA. As big mobile hits for EA, Riccitiello cited The Simpsons: Tapped Out, Real Racing 3, Bejeweled, Scrabble, and Plants vs. Zombies.
It’s easy to name many big hits in mobile — Angry Birds, Temple Run, Cut the Rope, Tiny Wings, and CSR Racing — that became huge entertainment properties without the help of a big publisher. (EA did play a role in the beginning of Angry Birds, which was published by Chillingo, which subsequently was acquired by EA. But to say EA had a hand in the success of Angry Birds is a stretch). While EA is successful in mobile, so are many other companies.
“We were facing a world going through unbelievable change with the rise of smartphones, social networks, and more recently the iPad — each of which has turned out to be a platform where gaming is the No. 1 platform,” he said back in 2011.
EA is still waiting for its position in mobile games to pay off in a big way. It is part of a huge stake that EA has in digital games, but the payoff has yet to arrive. Riccitiello had suggested that digital games would help make the console boom-and-bust less cyclical. But here we are again, in a market trough, where game sales on the traditional platforms are starting to decline, and digital games are not completely offsetting that decline.
A spokesman for EA said, “It’s difficult to overstate how important the mobile segment is and how deeply it connects to PC, console platforms. EA’s leadership in mobile is a big strategic advantage for our brands and our profile on other platforms.”
EA is investing in games for the next generation of game consoles. But that’s another promise of something good, just around the corner. Investors have heard that story since 2007, McNealy said.
“Everyone fails,” he said. “Everyone falls down. Everyone loses a game or gets a bad grade.” When that happens, fail well, Riccitiello said back in 2011.
“I would argue we failed well,” he said. “We are students of our own failure. We used our failure to shape and impel us to a better strategy. One that we believe will ultimately succeed in ways that our previous strategy, even if perfectly executed, could never have done. … Trust me. Sooner or later, you’re going to get knocked on your ass. Will you fold? Or will you fail well?”
EA’s board finally lost patience with Riccitiello. EA’s stock price had been battered by the worldwide recession in 2009, and it never recovered. For the past decade, results have been flat. And Riccitiello was never able to get the stock price back to the level when he joined it.
It had stopped believing in the words that Riccitiello articulated so well in his 2011 speech. The end came swiftly. Riccitiello made a decision about something important on Friday, according to a source familiar with the matter. On Friday afternoon, Riccitiello met with Probst, who just became acting CEO again. On Monday afternoon, EA announced that Riccitiello had stepped down.
What’s next for EA, and who will be its next CEO?
Probst has the task of finding the next chief executive. As head of the U.S. Olympic Committee, Probst isn’t likely to stay in the job long himself. The natural candidates from EA’s internal team include Peter Moore, chief operating officer; Frank Gibeau, head of studios and executive vice president; and Dave Roberts, chief executive of PopCap Games.
But EA could reach outside for other industry leaders as well or pull someone who is steeped in the new digital gaming economy. EA has a lot of challenges ahead. McNealy said, “There are going to be more changes. They are not likely at the right size for where the bigger game industry is going.”
Ben Schachter, an analyst at Macquarie Research, said in a note that EA’s successor will have to contain costs and consistently deliver against expectations.
Clearly, the board isn’t going to be patient. EA has struggled and run in place for some time. This has an opportunity cost as rivals show how much better things can be. And whatever happens with the next-generation consoles, EA’s new chief will be heavily dependent on the execution of the plans that Riccitiello put in place. If he bet correctly, then EA will be golden.
An EA spokesman said that when you look at the demos for EA’s next-generation games, “You better be wearing a diaper.”
EA also says that the upcoming universal games platform, conceived by chief technology officer Rajat Taneja, will make EA’s popular Origin digital downloading service look like the tip of the iceberg on EA’s digital strategy.
Whomever EA chooses, Riccitiello says he will be rooting for them. In his farewell note, he said, “In a few weeks, I will be leaving EA physically. But I will never leave emotionally. I am so incredibly proud of all the great things you have done, and it has been my honor to lead this team these past six years. After March, I will be cheering wildly for EA from the sidelines.”
[Photo credits: Dean Takahashi, EA, Fox, and UC Berkeley]
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September 13, 2012
Oh, Ranger! NY State Parks App Connects Users to the Outdoors
The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation & Historic Preservation has partnered with American Park Network to launch the official Oh, Ranger! NY State Parks, a free iPhone application (app) that gives visitors on-the-go the ability to access valuable park information. This new app includes more than 200 state parks, historic sites, golf courses, campgrounds and nature centers with amenities, directions and links to important numbers and services. State Parks Commissioner Rose Harvey said, "This tool is a great use of technology and the perfect customer service enhancement. More and more of our 58 million visitors each year are utilizing smart phones, and this new app will provide accurate, up to date data to explore the outdoors. We are grateful to our partners at American Park Network who developed this resource -- at no cost to the taxpayers and free to the public to download."
The Oh Ranger! NY State Parks app is designed to provide everything a visitor would need to become familiar with a property, including contact information, directions, amenities, maps and events. Information is updated regularly in partnership with state park officials. Users can search by zip code and desired activity to find locations near them to go hiking, camping, boating, birding, and discover historic sites, nature centers and more.
With much of the information embedded, users do not need the Internet to display park information, an important feature as some parks may have limited connectivity. Additionally, social media sharing allows users to post photos and share experiences with friends and family via Facebook and Twitter to help get inspire more people to explore the outdoors. The app also provides an opportunity for users to submit comments which will add even more benefits to the platform, creating a trusted citizen/government partnership resource for state park information.
"We're excited to collaborate with the state to provide the Oh, Ranger! NY State Parks app as a free public service," said Mark Saferstein, Publisher & Editor-in-Chief at American Park Network and OhRanger.com. "We hope this will serve as an example of how public/private partnerships can help connect more people with the great outdoor experiences available throughout the state."
The app is initially available for iPhone and iPod touch (it works on an iPad too), with an Android version soon to follow. To download the Oh, Ranger! NY State Parks app, visit the iTunes App store at http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/oh-ranger!-ny-state-parks/id548664594?mt=8, scan the QR code or go to www.nysparks.com.
New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation oversees 178 state parks and 35 historic sites. For more information on any of these recreation areas, call 518-474-0456 or visit www.nysparks.com, connect on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter.


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Industry Leaders to Create Global Standard Enabling 'Buy Once, Play Anywhere' Consumer Experience for Digital MediaFriday, September 12th, 2008
Major Hollywood studios, retailers, service providers, and consumer electronics and IT companies to develop framework for bringing together digital products, content and services for consumers
LOS ANGELES — Today, an international and cross-industry group of more than 20 leading companies announced the formation of a consortium, Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE) LLC (“DECE LLC”), that will define and build a new digital media framework using industry standards, and will enable consumers to acquire and play content across a wide range of services and devices. Anchored by Alcatel-Lucent, Best Buy, Cisco Systems, Comcast, Fox Entertainment Group, HP, Intel Corp., Lionsgate, Microsoft, NBC Universal, Paramount Pictures, Philips, Sony Corp., Toshiba, VeriSign and Warner Bros. Entertainment, DECE LLC will address growing consumer confusion around buying, downloading and playing digital content offered by multiple services by working toward a simple, uniform digital media experience.
“This is great news for consumers hungry for access to a wider array of digital content they can enjoy on any device they own. We formed this consortium to give consumers that kind of power and choice,” said Mitch Singer, president of DECE LLC, on behalf of its members. “To open up the market for digital distribution, we are developing a specification that connects a wide variety of services and devices. DECE LLC is taking the lessons learned from the successful “buy once, play anywhere” experience that we enjoy with CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray today, and using a similar approach in developing the next generation digital media experience.”
Over time, DECE LLC will issue a licensable specification, along with a recognizable brand and logo for compliant products and services that will assure consumers that content they download will play on their devices. The specification, based on industry standards, will outline the hardware and software requirements for companies to follow as they define new consumer experiences.
The specification will also define how consumers can enjoy their purchased content on an assortment of devices, or even remotely, thereby creating the convenience of a virtual library, accessible in the home or on the road. By offering consumers the same level of confidence and comfort with digital content that they feel today with physical media, DECE LLC believes it can bring real value to digital content.
As DECE LLC moves ahead, it will continue to seek broader industry support across the content, software, hardware, retailer and service provider sectors, and will issue more information around its development and release plans.
1. Sony ‘Developing the Digital Market’ Presentation;
2. Movie Labels To Launch New ‘Open Market’ Play Anywhere Scheme As Last Ditch Effort To Save DRM (TechCrunch).
- Bitmovin and MainStreaming partner to deliver broadcast-quality video streams
- New products and more countries for Amazon-built TV range
- Pay TV subscribers in Eastern Europe to fall to 73 million in 2028
- VIZIO selects Whip Media for WatchFree+ ad revenue reporting
- Qwilt partners with Telefónica to provide CDN services in Spain
- Ateme launches 'audience-aware' streaming solution


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A popular hedge fund has moved against the trend by dumping Apple stock and betting big on Microsoft
Apple has been dropped by the popular hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, and the firm’s current holding was cut by half as of the end of 2014 compared to the third quarter of 2014. During the same period, the hedge fund raised its bet on tech juggernaut Microsoft.
A bold move to dump Apple
The iPhone maker is seeing a startling rise in its shares, but hedge funds like Bridgewater Associates are going against the flow. The firm’s total holdings in Apple at the end of 2014 was $28.6 million, a drop from $53.9 million from the end of the third quarter of 2014. During the same period, the hedge fund increased its Microsoft holdings 4,000% from just $679,000 at the end of the third quarter to $27.9 million at the end of 2014. It should be noted that the equity holdings represent a small fraction of the $160 billion plus managed by the fund.
Up-and-Coming Small- and Mid-cap Portfolio Managers #MICUS (Morningstar Conference)
Notes from Laird Bieger of Baron Capital, Mark Wynegar of Tributary Capital Management, and Amy Zhang of Alger Funds' presentation from the 2020 Monringstar Investment Conference. Q2 2020 hedge fund letters, conferences and more Up-and-Coming Small- and Mid-cap Portfolio Managers Our manager research team has been publishing its semiannual Morningstar Prospects report for several years. Read More
Bridgewater’s move to drop Apple could be called audacious in the event that it is betting through its money. Hedge funds are known as “smart money” because they have substantial funds to make bets, which are generally against the current market movement. Wall Street analysts, on the other hand, are not confident enough to raise their voice and take a cautious note on Apple’s continuously-rising stock.
Strategy not worked so far
Dumping Apple stock and taking up Microsoft has not worked very well for Bridgewater so far this year, says a report from USA TODAY. Apple stock has been in the uptrend after reporting record iPhone 6 sales for the fourth quarter. On the other hand, Microsoft has been witnessing declining investor confidence, as its shares have dropped because the company’s move into faster growing areas is taking more time than expected.
Apple is making high-end smartphones and selling them at high prices and making consumers buy costly cell phone plans compared to smartphones that have exciting and comparable features at only a fraction of the cost. Loyal iPhone fans and new users make the business run as a loop for the company, which is making profits like the U.S. has never seen before.
Apart from hedge funds, there are a few analysts who are talking against Apple. On the other hand, there are investors who are confident about Apple becoming the first U.S. $1 trillion company.


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Watch out, Amazon and Walmart: Kroger is also building an advertising business
Amazon’s advertising business is worth at least $1 billion, and Walmart has a growing advertising platform, too. Kroger, one of the biggest grocery brands in the U.S., is also venturing into retail media. Kroger is selling its suppliers ad units and solutions, and it is developing a programmatic platform that will go live next year.
Kroger, which owns the likes of Harris Teeter, Baker’s and Fred Meyer Jewelers, generated $27.7 billion in sales from July to September of this year, up 4.5 percent from the same period a year prior, according its quarterly earnings report released in November. Approximately half of all U.S. households have a Kroger loyalty card, which drives nearly 90 percent of Kroger’s sales, according to the company. Like Walmart, Kroger boasts that its loyalty program data and purchase data gathered from its mobile apps, brand websites and around 2,800 stores across 35 states in the U.S. can help its suppliers (mostly consumer packaged goods companies like Procter & Gamble) serve targeted ads on Kroger’s properties and the open web.
Kroger’s sales pitch may sound familiar, as mass retailers like Amazon and Walmart all use their consumer purchase data as the cornerstone to carve out a media business. But different from Amazon, which has an in-house media division called Amazon Marketing Group, and Walmart, whose media platform was largely built by WPP-owned Triad Retail Media (which also creates ad units to sell for other retailers), Kroger bought the data analytics piece of agency Dunnhumby (formerly a joint venture between Kroger and Tesco) around three years ago to form its own consumer insights subsidiary called 84.51°.
“CPG brands today are splitting their marketing spend between trade and advertising. Trade promotion is one of the industry’s largest investments — this is promotional dollars to influence brick-and-mortar sale pricing like temporary price reductions,” said Cara Pratt, vp of customer communications product strategy and innovation for 84.51°. “CPGs shift their marketing budgets across vehicles — many of which deliver against different business objectives, but all are intended to [generate] sales. Our science and Kroger’s customer insights help CPG brands drive actions.”
Kroger is the only retailer that the 84.51° team of 775 serves. The division also helps more than 300 CPG clients understand how to better use Kroger’s data and third-party data for advertising. The majority of 84.51° employees are based in its Cincinnati office, which is only a 10-minute walk from the Kroger headquarters. A small team in Portland, Oregon, is also responsible for media planning and buying for the Kroger brand, according to Bob Welch, svp of customer communications and Kroger media services for 84.51°.
Welch said Kroger’s advertising business has two pillars: One component is Kroger’s customer communications program, where the retailer runs direct and email campaigns for its suppliers with tailored content and promotions; the other is what the company calls “precision marketing solution,” powered by Kroger’s purchase data from 60 million households.
One offering under Kroger’s precision marketing solution is on-site advertising on Kroger.com. 84.51° is responsible for developing ad formats on the site and managing ad sales for Kroger, much like what Triad Retail Media does for Walmart. “You can say that we borrowed the Triad model, but the differentiation is our ability to personalize the experience,” said Pratt. “We can connect 96 percent of Kroger transactions to a customer, which allows us to serve very targeted product placement and drive better conversion.”
CPG clients can also buy co-branded media on the open web — largely display ads that include the Kroger logo and direct consumers to Kroger properties when they click on the ad — as well as run word-of-mouth campaigns through Kroger’s MyMagazine Sharing Network, where brands give out free products, and members give their feedback and share the product on social media in return, according to Pratt.
Pratt declined to share the total number of ad formats Kroger sells and the corresponding pricing model. “Some formats are CPM-based and some are [cost-per-click]-based,” she said. “CPC-based ads are more connected to search marketing.”
Most Kroger precision marketing buys are placed programmatically through a combination of programmatic direct and open exchange inventory, according to Pratt. 84.51° is also developing a programmatic platform that will be available in the next year to let advertisers buy ads on Kroger.com. Kroger’s ad solutions don’t apply to Harris Teeter or Roundy’s brands at the moment.
“Extending our capabilities to those newer brands to the Kroger family will occur in the future,” said Pratt.
More in Marketing
TikTok has officially launched its new e-commerce platform, TikTok Shop, earlier this month on August 1. Using the new e-commerce platform, brands and creators can sell products directly on the platform, potentially creating new revenue streams, and tap into the short-form video platform’s growing popularity.
‘The influencer industry can be really vile’: Confessions of an influencer marketer on the industry’s unfair hiring practices
While the influencer industry might sound exciting and like it’s full of opportunities, one marketer can vouch for the horrific scenarios that still take place behind the scenes.
After a tumultuous 12 months, marketers are getting a clear picture of how they really did during a time of true uncertainty. And, as it turns out, it wasn’t all that bad.
Ad position: web_bfu


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Rolls-Royce Motor Cars achieved an unprecedented global sales performance in 2022, the year it unveiled the Rolls-Royce Spectre, the marque’s first all-electric model. The Bespoke Collective at the Home of Rolls-Royce delivered a total of 6,021 automobiles to customers worldwide, setting a new record with an 8% increase over the previous record of 5,586 set in 2021. Clients were seeking increasingly imaginative and technically demanding features, which the Bespoke Collective eagerly embraced.
In addition to fulfilling individual bespoke commissions and Collection car orders, Rolls-Royce also unveiled the next chapter in its Boat Tail coachbuilt commission, one of only three that will ever be made. First deliveries will take place in the fourth quarter of 2023, marking the first step towards Rolls-Royce’s goal of producing only fully-electric cars by the end of 2030. This unprecedented success comes as the company prepares to mark the 20th anniversary of the Home of Rolls Royce at Goodwood in January 2023.
As a luxury brand, sales are not the primary measure of success for Rolls-Royce. Instead, the company places a strong emphasis on bespoke commissions and the value of these requests was higher than ever in 2022. Clients were seeking increasingly imaginative and technically demanding features, which were enthusiastically taken on by the Bespoke Collective of expert designers, engineers, and craftspeople based mostly on the Home of Rolls-Royce.
In addition to individual bespoke commissions and Collection cars, Rolls-Royce also unveiled the next chapter in its Boat Tail coachbuilt commission – one of just three that will ever be made. Coachbuild represents the pinnacle of the company’s craft and is a key element in its long-term strategy, with future projects already in development. The possibilities offered by bespoke commissions also contributed to Rolls-Royce’s record profitability in 2022, with clients willing to pay around half a million Euros for their unique motor cars. The scarcity and rarity of these bespoke vehicles are essential to maintaining the brand’s exceptional strength.
Rolls-Royce’s all-electric Spectre model made its debut in October 2022, and the pre-order bank for this ultra-luxury super coupé has exceeded the company’s expectations. First deliveries will take place in the fourth quarter of 2023, marking the first step towards Rolls-Royce’s goal of producing only fully-electric cars by the end of 2030.
Rolls-Royce Motor Cars CEO, Torsten Müller-Ötvös, has stated that the company’s record sales in 2022 confirm it as a “great British success story” and that he is “cautiously optimistic” about the year ahead, despite global challenges and economic headwinds. Müller-Ötvös also praised the company’s team at Goodwood and in regional offices worldwide, saying they are committed to excellence and have a remarkable ability to turn ideas into reality. He added that the company’s founders would be proud to work alongside them.
The USA was the largest market for Rolls-Royce in 2022, with a new generation of younger American entrepreneurs, wealth generators, and job creators drawn to the brand for the first time.
Greater China remained the company’s second-largest market, with solid sales in Shanghai, Beijing, and new tier-one cities such as Hangzhou and Shenzhen. However, ongoing headwinds resulted in a single-digit drop in sales overall compared to the previous year.
Europe saw record sales for Rolls-Royce in 2022, despite the region’s significant geopolitical challenges. This included record sales in the UK and Germany.
The Middle East is Rolls Royce’s most popular region for bespoke commissions, with a high demand for one-of-a-kind and highly personalized creations. In 2022, the company opened its first location outside of Goodwood, an invitation-only Private Office in Dubai, bringing the Home of Rolls-Royce closer to its regional clients. Rolls-Royce plans to open more Private Offices around the world in the coming months and years.
Asia-Pacific played a significant role in Rolls-Royce’s global success, with strong sales growth in the region in 2022. In Japan, a modern splendor of successful entrepreneurs is increasingly investing in Rolls-Royce motor cars, while the highly dynamic market of Korea has shown significant growth over the past two years, with the potential to become the company’s leading market in the region in the near future.


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More than 140 family entertainment centre (FEC) industry leaders representing 52 companies from 23 states and 11 countries participated in the Florida edition FEC 2016, which took place at the … Read More
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Interactive attractions powerhouse Alterface Projects and the animation and media masters at Pure Imagination Studios announced a ground-breaking new partnership during the IAAPA Attractions Expo in Orlando last week.
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As the UK leaves the European Union and inches closer to its discussion on the Enhanced Trade Partnership with India, the launch of this report therefore will be a strong marker of the India-UK economic relationship…a report by Rahul Laud
The Britain Meets India report 2021 identifies the top UK companies in India in terms of revenue, growth and employment. It provides an insight into their geographic preferences, sectors and the impact they have on the Indian economy.
As the UK leaves the European Union and inches closer to its discussion on the Enhanced Trade Partnership with India, the launch of this report therefore will be a strong marker of the India-UK economic relationship. It will also be an opportunity to highlight the role of British investments in India and attract future investors to make India as a choice of business destination, says a CII press release.
The recently concluded virtual launch (17February 2021) of the report witnessed engaging discussions by eminent dignitaries such as HE Alexander Ellis CMG (British High Commissioner to the Republic of India), HE Gaitri Issar Kumar IFS (High Commissioner of India to the United Kingdom), Lord Karan Bilimoria (Founder and Chairman, Cobra Beer and President of the Confederation of British Industry), Sandeep Chakravorty (Joint Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs), Sanjiv Bajaj (Vice President, CII and Chairman & Managing Director, Bajaj Finserv Ltd) and experts from Grant Thornton Bharat and UK.
Gaitri Issar Kumar, High Commissioner of India to UK, said, “The insights from this report will highlight successful collaborations, key complementarities as well as areas of potential. This will give confidence to future UK investors who are looking for a secure footing as they partner with India. We are developing a roadmap to a free trade agreement with an ambitious target of 100 billion pounds by 2030.”
Alex Ellis CMG, High Commissioner of UK to India, “Both India and the UK must think about coming together to create a global impact. Both the economies will have to create a lot of jobs in the next decade and build back in a more sustainable way. Investment is not an abstract word. It’s actually about creation of more jobs, protection of our planet. It is also about the flow of ideas and talent between the two countries so we can share new approaches to deal with problems of the world.”
Mr Sandeep Chakravorty, Joint Secretary (Western Europe), Ministry of External Affairs, Go I, said, “Besides a free trade agreement, mobility and an interim trade deal, we are working on a 10-year 360 degree roadmap to strengthen our relationship with the UK. Going forward, we see investments in India’s clean energy sector coming from the UK.”
Presenting the report findings at the launch of the first ever BMI Tracker report, Pallavi Joshi Bakhru, Partner and India-UK Corridor Leader, Grant Thornton Bharat LLP said, “Our research identified 572 UK companies in India with a combined turnover of around INR 3,390 billion, tax payment of around INR 173 billion and employing 416,121 people directly. This reflects the important contribution made by the UK companies to the Indian economy as a key ally in India’s growth story.” Grant Thornton Bharat and Grant Thornton UK have been working closely in the India-UK corridor for nearly three decades.
Mr Sanjiv Bajaj, Vice President, CII and Chairman & MD, Bajaj Finserv Ltd remarked while launching the report, “We are very keen on increasing bilateral trade and investment as also make progress on the enhanced trade partnership between India and UK. With UK exiting European Union and signing the trade agreement it has made it inevitable for India and UK to cement its bilateral economic partnership further.
An insightful fireside conversation was moderated by Anuj Chande Partner, Head of South Asia Group London at Grant Thornton, included Alexander Ellis, Gaitri Issar Kumar, and Lord Karan Bilimoria (Founder and Chairman, Cobra Beer and President of the Confederation of British Industry.
The UK is currently the sixth largest investor in India, with a cumulative inflow (2000–2020) estimated at USD 29.5 billion, which represents about 6% of the total FDI into India. India has catapulted India’s rank in ease of doing business to 63 in 2019 from 77 in 2018. This has enhanced India’s attractiveness as an investment destination experts agree. .
Post Brexit, there is an increased interaction between India and the UK to strengthen the trade and economic partnership. Thus, this corridor has an important role to play in ensuring that businesses on both sides get the support they need to increase their commercial footprint, says the Grant Thornton narrative.
Key highlights of the report
572 UK companies in India were identified for the report, with a combined turnover of around INR 3,390 billion in 2019-20
91 companies, with an average growth rate of 26%, feature in the 2021 list of fastest growing UK companies in India. The fastest growing UK company in India is Dyson Technologies followed by Aviva Life Insurance Company, both registering a growth rate of over 100%. Some of the other top ranking companies across sectors are Next Polymers Ltd (Industrial Services), FMC Technology India (Energy and Power) and Diageo Business Services India (Business Services).
USD 26.7 billion: India’s trade in goods and services with the UK in 2020
INR 173 billion: Total tax paid by the UK companies in 2019-20 416,121 people directly employed by the UK companies