HT Media acquires social media marketing agency Webitude

HT Mobile Solutions, a subsidiary of HT Media Ltd, has acquired the digital marketing agency Webitude for an undisclosed sum. Webitude, owned and operated by Lucknow-based Bluelemon Technologies Pvt Ltd, is a full service digital agency located in Gurgaon and offers a host of digital marketing solutions including digital media planning & buying, social media marketing, social application development & deployment and online reputation management.

With this acquisition, Webitude will offer its solutions under an umbrella brand called Digital Quotient, according to a Press statement issued on Tuesday.

Techcircle.in first reported that HT Mobile has acquired the digital media marketing business of Bluelemon.

"Webitude is our go-to-market brand name. Post-acquisition, it will be part of HT Mobile, but will be run as an independent firm as it is now. The promoters will also join HT Mobile," Webitude co-founder and director Santosh Kumar told Techcircle.in.

He also added that Bluelemon would continue to exist as a separate venture. Webitude was founded in 2009 by Kumar, along with Girish Mahajan and Mahesh Singh. Kumar holds an MBA in Marketing while Mahajan holds a PG diploma in Advertising and Public Relations and Singh holds a degree in Computer Science. Kumar and Mahajan also co-founded Buzzref.com, an open analytics tool for Facebook.

"The Indian digital marketing landscape can be summarised by three megatrends – explosive growth in mobile usage, social media and videos consumption. As Digital Quotient, we will be able to offer our clients a rich array of solutions across mobile and social media, and leverage the power of multimedia to help establish a meaningful connect with consumers," said Vinish Kathuria, COO of HT Mobile.

HT Mobile offers value-added services, digital content distribution and digital marketing on mobile. It provides QR codes & application development for smartphone platforms and has been looking to develop competencies in augmented reality and Windows application development platforms. The company also plans to venture into location-based programming and ad networks.

HT Mobile had Rs 11 crore in revenues for the year ended March 31, 2012, or a quarter of all digital media revenues of HT Media for the year. HT Media owns 65 per cent of HT Mobile Solutions.

For the media firm, this is yet another deal involving the digital media business. Earlier, it struck a deal to acquire a large strategic stake in MyParichay, which expanded the social media integration for its existing job site Shine.com.

(Edited by Sanghamitra Mandal)