WP Pro Online

India surpassed North America to take the top global spot in the smartwatch market in the quarter that ended in September, according to a report from market research player Counterpoint. The festival sales and proliferation of affordable smartwatches helped grew the local market by 171% year-on-year.

The affordable smartwatch models getting bigger displays and adding features such as Bluetooth calling were key selling factors in India during the festival sales, Hong Kong-headquartered Counterpoint said.

“Indian brands expanding their product portfolios at affordable price points and emphasis on local manufacturing also contributed to the growth,” Counterpoint analyst Anshika Jain said in a statement.

“Bluetooth-calling emerged as an important feature, contributing a 58% share in total shipments, the highest ever share to date. Consumers are also preferring bigger display sizes, which is evident from the fact that over half of the total shipments in Q3 came from the 1.5”-1.69” display size.”

North America, which was the top market from Q4 2020 to Q2 2022, grew 21% year-on-year while China and Europe had a negative growth.

India’s growth meant that the country’s top brand Noise captured third place on overall shipment charts — thanks to a 218% year-on-year growth— only lagging Apple and Samsung.

The smartwatchmaker told TechCrunch that it aims to scale its local production from 50% to 80% by the end of the year. Local rival Fire-Boltt, which was only a percentage behind Noise in the market share, grabbed the fourth place in global rankings.

Apple grew 48% due to stellar sales of the new Apple Watch 8 series, which accounted for 56% of overall sales. Samsung grew 6% year-on-year despite registering a 62% shipping increase from the previous quarter.

Counterpoint report segregates smartwatches into two categories: High-level operating system smartwatches (HLOS), which include devices from companies like Apple, Samsung, Huawei, Garmin, and Amazfit; and what it calls “basic” smartwatches that feature a lighter operating system and are more affordable. Noise, Fire-Bollt, and BoAT operate in the latter category.

The research shop said that the HLOS segment grew 23%, whereas basic smartwatches grew by more than a double — resulting in commanding a 35% of the market share. Apple currently dominates the HLOS market with about 50% market share whereas Samsung sits second in the chart.

“This remarkable increase in basic smartwatch shipments shows us that the market base is rapidly expanding toward more accessible segments amid aggressive drives by the supply side. But still, in terms of revenue, the HLOS smartwatch overwhelms the basic smartwatch with a market size of almost 10 times due to its high average selling price (ASP),” Research Analyst Woojin Son said in a statement.

Earlier this month, analyst firm IDC published a report on India’s wearable market, noting that the smartwatch segment grew by 178% with more than 12 million units shipped in the quarter ending September. The report said that this growth could also be attributed to falling smartwatch prices in the region as the average selling price dropped from $60 to $41.9 in a year. This is an indicator that Indian consumers are likely to go for cheaper alternatives than the Apple Watch or the Samsung Galaxy Watch.

All the India-based smartwatch manufacturers have committed to rapidly increasing their local manufacturing output in the coming months to increase the production rate. This could help them bring down the device prices further and increase shipments to catch up with Samsung and Apple in unit shipments.

India pips North America to become the biggest smartwatch market by Ivan Mehta originally published on TechCrunch

Over the past 11 years, eFounders has refined the startup studio model in Europe. The company has contributed to the launch of more than 30 different startups, including three unicorns —Spendesk, Aircall and Front.

While things seem to be doing well for the startup studio, eFounders is pivoting — sort of. As of today, eFounders is becoming Hexa, a holding company for different startup studios.

You could have seen this change coming as eFounders hasn’t been just eFounders for a while. In addition to its initial studio focused on the future of work, eFounders has already launched two new studios — Logic Founders for fintech startups and 3founders for web3 startups.

Hexa is going to run three different studios — Logic Founders, 3founders and, yes, eFounders. So what is happening with eFounders then?

“I started writing a LinkedIn article saying that it is the last time I’m writing as the founder of eFounders,” eFounders co-founder Thibaud Elzière told me. But he is not going anywhere as the eFounders core team is simply going to work for Hexa now.

Just like with Hexa’s other studios, there is a dedicated eFounders team with a head of studio as well as a core team of product people. Matthieu Vaxelaire is now at the helm of eFounders.

Combined, Hexa companies have hired 3,000 people and have reached a total valuation of $5 billion. And Hexa isn’t going to change its formula going forward. Hexa’s startup studios match an idea with a founding team.

The studio team then provides resources and help to launch a product. After raising some funding, startups gain their independence and the startup studio can move on and focus on new projects.

“We reached a limit when it comes to scalability. It’s a virtuous model but it’s also very much handcrafted work,” Elzière told me. In addition to supporting Hexa’s existing studios, the company wants to launch studios around new verticals, such as climate, education and health.

But it will depend on heads of studio that they meet and end up hiring. Hexa aims to launch two new studios next year.

“It’s a crazy bet for us. We are creating a brand from scratch. And we are doing that because eFounders is a strong brand when it comes to SaaS startups, but also because eFounders was outshining other studios,” Elzière said.

A 30% stake

“What we are doing with Hexa is that we are democratizing team entrepreneurship. We offer an alternative to traditional entrepreneurship” Elzière said. “Like a lot of things in life, when you work as a team, it works better.”

But that doesn’t mean that Hexa and its startup studios are launching new startups for fun. They are taking a significant stake in each new startup.

“We want to launch more startups. But it costs us around €800,000 to launch a company. We can either invest some money ourselves, or we could create a small fund like Y Combinator. Investors could contribute and they would end up on the cap table.”

When Hexa’s startup studios launch a new startup, they try to keep a 30% stake in the company after raising a seed round. With third-party investors, Hexa could lower its stake to something like 25%, and investors would get 5%.

Hexa’s own stake would be split between Hexa and each startup studio. “You would have 5 to 10% that would be allocated to the head of studio and their team,” Elzière said. The bottom line is that Hexa and its partners would still take a 30% stake. Then it would be split between multiple partners.

“That deal might seem a bit unfair,” Elzière said. But he thinks eFounders’ track record speaks for itself. With roughly 3 unicorns out of 30 portfolio companies, entrepreneurs are more likely to create a unicorn with the help of eFounders than without. Essentially, founders can potentially get a smaller portion of a bigger cake.

The life and death of startup studios

But where does Hexa come from exactly? It comes from the hexadecimal numbering system. In particular, hexadecimals are used to represent binary digits (0 and 1) in computing programming. Each hexadecimal character represents a succession of four binary digits.

“For me, it’s the simplest expression of the human-machine interface,” Elzière said. As a bonus, hexadecimal characters are also used by designers for color codes.

He believes that startup studios will work just like startups. Some of them will thrive, others will fail. “Studios will have a certain lifespan. At some point, they’ll run out of steam because the head of studio won’t be there anymore or there won’t be any opportunity left,” Elzière said. As always, we will judge the quality of Hexa’s work by the new startups that emerge from those studios.

eFounders morphs into Hexa, a portfolio company of startup studios by Romain Dillet originally published on TechCrunch

Telegram has disclosed names of administrators, their phone numbers and IP addresses of channels accused of copyright infringement in compliance with a court order in India in a remarkable illustration of the data the instant messaging platform stores on its users and can be made to disclose by authorities.

The app operator was forced to shared the data after a teacher sued the firm for not doing enough to prevent unauthorised distribution of her course material on the platform. Neetu Singh, the plaintiff teacher, said a number of Telegram channels were re-selling her study materials without permission at discounted prices.

An Indian court earlier had ordered Telegram to adhere to the Indian law and disclose details about those operating such channels.

Telegram unsuccessfully argued that disclosing user information would violate the privacy policy and the laws of Singapore, where it has located its physical servers for storing users data. In response, the Indian court said the copyright owners couldn’t be left “completely remediless against the actual infringers” because Telegram has chosen to locate its servers outside the country.

In an order last week, Justice Prathiba Singh said Telegram had complied with the earlier order and shared the data.

“Let copy of the said data be supplied to Id. Counsel for plaintiffs with the clear direction that neither the plaintiffs nor their counsel shall disclose the said data to any third party, except for the purposes of the present proceedings. To this end, disclosure to the governmental authorities/police is permissible,” said the court (PDF) and first reported by LiveLaw.

A Telegram spokesperson declined to say whether the app operator shared private data.

“Telegram stores very limited or no data on its users. In most cases, we can’t even access any user data without specific entry points, and we believe this was the case here. Consequently, we can’t confirm that any private data has been shared in this instance,” Telegram spokesperson Remi Vaughn told TechCrunch.

India is one of the largest markets for Telegram, which has amassed nearly 150 million users in the South Asian market.

Telegram shares data of users accused of copyright violation following court order by Manish Singh originally published on TechCrunch

Disney paid $900 million to Major League Baseball (MLB) earlier this month to buy out the league’s remaining 15% stake in the streaming firm BAMTech, according to an SEC filing made public Tuesday.

The transaction makes Disney a 100% owner of the streaming company that powers Disney+ and the firm’s other consumer services.

The SEC filing noted that MLB’s interest in BAMTech was recorded in the entertainment company’s financial statements at $828 million, and in November Disney bought out MLB’s stake for $900 million. Last week, Disney announced that Bob Iger is returning to the company as a CEO to replace Bob Chapek. Since this transaction was undertaken earlier this month, it was probably one of the last big moves by Chapek.

In the filing, Disney said that Iger will “initiate organizational and operating changes within the Company to address the Board’s goals” in the coming months.

MLB founded MLB Advanced Media in 2000 to power its website and online streaming. It spun off the streaming division as BAMTech in 2015. A year later, Disney invested $1 billion for a 33% stake in BAMTech. In 2017, the entertainment conglomerate invested an additional $1.58 billion to acquire 42% more stake. In 2021, the National Hockey League (NHL) sold its 10% stake to Disney for $350 million— propelling Disney’s stake in BAMTech to 85%.

The move comes days before Disney+ is set to launch its ad-supported tier. In Q3 2022, the streaming service registered an increase of 12 million subscribers with a total of 164.2 million subscribers globally.

Disney coughs up $900M to acquire MLB’s remaining stake in BAMTech streaming company by Ivan Mehta originally published on TechCrunch